Three Mile Drove, Chapter Twelve (standard:horror, 3610 words) [13/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Jan 18 2007	Views/Reads: 2714/1852	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Coninuation of a completed horror story - a fading pop musician inherits a smallholding in the English Fens, and soon finds himself involved in a scene of abduction, rape, and murder.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I must admit I thought you might think I was a bit old.' 

‘Not to the extent that it affects your capability,' Darren said,
finding himself smiling. ‘So when can you get started?' 

‘Monday all right?' Jackson said, shoving his hands into his suit
pockets and leaning back, so that it revealed, if not an oversized 
waistline, then a spreading one. ‘Did I tell you I once did a job for 
Sam Regan, on that old bungalow?' 

‘No you didn't,' Darren glanced up at Jackson in surprise, his eyes
narrowing. He certainly didn't know, and as a point of fact it sounded 
a bit ominous. It must surely have been a long time ago, and couldn't 
have amounted to much, because he was as certain as he'd ever been that 
nothing much had been done to the place since it was built. 

‘Anything major?' Darren asked, trying to appear casual, though he
suspected he was scarcely concealing his doubts. 

‘I fitted an inside toilet,' Jackson said, taking what looked like a
Havana cigar from his jacket pocket, and cutting the end with a pair of 
clippers. He reached into his pocket again and held one out to Darren, 
‘Here, have one...' 

‘No, thanks all the same,' Darren said as genially as possible, he
didn't want to offend the man. ‘I've given it up.' 

‘Wise man, don't blame you,' Jackson coughed as though to emphasise the
point. 

‘No, it was a long time ago, so long I can't remember exactly,' he said,
returning to his thoughts. ‘Old Sam was already a sick man mind you, 
can't ever remember him being all that well as it happens. I can 
remember the occasion well enough though, he had a young girl with him, 
Claire Summerby. The name wouldn't mean much to you, I shouldn't think. 
She's grown up now, a real tasty woman I can tell you. Mind you, she 
was always a pretty little thing.' He broke off for a second, searching 
his suit pocket for his lighter, unaware of the change in Darren's 
expression, ‘I remember she'd been crying her eyes out. Something the 
cantankerous old sod had been saying, or doing to her I expect.' 

‘Hang on, just hang on,' Darren became acutely aware of his mood
souring, particularly at the second part of Jackson's remark, if it 
meant what he thought it did. The mere mention of her name, and then 
the sudden link with Old Bridge Farm had taken him completely by 
surprise. But he shouldn't form assumptions directly from Jackson's 
remarks. Things had moved on a bit quickly here, he needed time to 
reflect. He was careful to keep his interest low key. 

‘Sorry for interrupting, but we have met by chance, I hadn't realised
she had any connection with the place.' 

‘Oh yeah...' Jackson seemed torn between raising his voice above the
loud buzz of conversation that was beginning to fill the air, or of 
keeping it down. He chose the latter, so that Darren had to strain to 
hear. 

‘There's an old house midway along the drove, the place is falling to
bits now, I shouldn't think there's been anybody near it in years. 
Claire's mum and dad, Maisie and Henry, used to live there until they 
died, within a few days of each other, by all accounts.' He paused, 
shoving the cigar into his mouth and lighting it, ‘Strange business it 
was too. Pneumonia, that's what they called it at the time, but I can 
tell you there were some folks around then, that wasn't so sure of 
that.' 

Darren became aware that he was gaping at Jackson in surprise at this
new picture that was unfolding in front of him. Of a young girl, 
tormented and possibly abused by her uncle, bereaved of both her 
parents within a few days of each other, with a suddenness to it that 
must have shocked and shattered her, and doubts uttered, at least in 
passing, as to the true nature of those deaths. Though could the young 
Claire have got wind of the suspicions? Darren doubted that very much: 
at least that was something she wouldn't have had to be troubled about. 


‘You all right?' Jackson asked, a sudden expression of concern on his
face. 

‘Yeah, sure Mr.Jackson,' Darren recovered quickly, ‘I'm sorry, just a
bit taken back, I hadn't realised. Go on – what happened to Claire 
after that?' 

‘Call me Ted,' the large man said, slapping a hand on Darren's shoulder,
‘if I'm gonna be doing work for you it helps to be on first name terms, 
least that's what I've always found.' His face settled again, as he 
recalled the young child, ‘Well, poor girl, must have been a real 
hammer blow, that one. Both of them popping off like that. Some folks 
thought old Sam might have taken her in, he was Henry's brother you 
see, making him her uncle, but the bloke wasn't well enough. In any 
case it wouldn't have been a good idea if you see what I mean, 
licentious old bugger.' 

Darren felt his blood beginning to boil at the very thought of the old
man with his hands all over her, but managed to keep his outrage in 
check by clenching his hands together and digging his nails in hard. 

‘Nobody I knew seemed to have any idea about what happened to her after
that, she disappeared for a good few years before turning up again as a 
teenager. Though one person did tell me afterwards, that one of her 
relations brought her up, I suppose that must have been how it went.' 

He looked back as someone shouted his name above the general chatter,
‘Anyhow I suppose I ought to be getting back to the group.' He extended 
a large hand, taking Darren's in its grip. Darren noticed there was no 
smile this time, though the handshake was genuine enough; it seemed to 
him that the sombre nature of the subject had left its mark on Jackson 
as well. 

‘Nice to be doing business with you Mr.Goldwater, I'll be at Bridge Farm
bright and early Monday morning.' 

Darren nodded, his head spinning from the revelation that Claire's
parents had died within a couple of days of each other, and reading 
between very broad lines it seemed there were those who doubted the 
deaths were due to natural causes, but then in a remote fenland village 
he suspected rumours started easily, and probably without any substance 
either. After all, it always seemed that way in the soaps that sent him 
to sleep. Then there was the aspect that really riled him, could 
Jackson have been right in his thinly veiled reference to Regan 
molesting Claire? Was this rumour or fact. This, he decided, was where 
fact played the major role. For Jackson to seem so sure about it he 
would have thought it was more than rumour, more some kind of local, 
general knowledge. Darren found he was becoming incensed again even by 
thinking about what might have happened to Claire at the dirty old 
man's hands. 

He managed to eat most of his evening meal even though he hadn't much
appetite to it, his mind becoming too preoccupied with thoughts of 
Claire. He pushed the plate to one side and made his way to his room. 
Tomorrow evening he was due to call for Claire, would he bring this up? 


There was no real way he could do this of course, not without her
mentioning it, and he couldn't see that happening. He would have to 
keep this little piece of knowledge, wild rumour or whatever it was to 
himself. Worrying though it was. 

That night he slept better than he thought he might, despite the
unsettling news. There was none of the turbulence, none of the violent 
nightmares that had ravaged his sleep on his first night there. Of 
course, he was beginning to familiarise himself with the inn now, it 
wasn't the strange outpost between city and village it had seemed when 
he'd arrived. It was just as well, because he'd need to be spending a 
fair while in his new surroundings, certainly until the bungalow had 
been refurbished sufficiently to allow him to live under its roof. 

Darren supposed he could find cheaper accommodation easily enough, a
boarding house somewhere, but his room here was spacious, it wasn't 
dingy or cramped, the people who owned the place were accommodating 
enough, and it was only a couple of miles from the bungalow. Of course 
it would have been cheaper for him to live in his Nottingham home until 
his own was sold, but he'd cut his ties and besides, there were 
developments unfurling here, which both intrigued and bugged him. *     
                                * 

McPherson looked in the bathroom mirror and saw the thin wrinkles
beneath his eyes. He hadn't slept well. He couldn't get the damned 
abduction off his mind, he kept seeing a picture in his sleep; he kept 
seeing it over and over again. There was a young girl lying on an old 
blue mattress in the upstairs of a derelict house, a threadbare blanket 
lay beside her. The young girl was unable to move because someone or 
something was holding her down. But that was the part of the picture 
McPherson had been unable to see, try as he might, all night long. 

He sighed, reached over for the gel and lathered his face for a shave.
In reality the girl wasn't there, but to hell, everything else had been 
- the old mattress, the blanket and the ankle sock. Okay, so they'd 
found no DNA, no traces on anything, he'd nothing to go on to establish 
the sock's origin, though it had been the clothing of a young child. 
Possibly the clothing of the missing child. Alright, so he had other 
things on his plate, new crimes were dropping on his desk, which were 
beginning to transcend the search in terms of importance. 

But not if he could get some real result, perhaps not to stumble blindly
across the missing girl but to find a substantial clue, and it would 
need to be a substantial one, something which would warrant him 
scouring every inch of fenland between Littleport and Ely. Something to 
justify the cost of such an exercise. 

He needed to go back to the house; it was the only source of hope as far
as he was concerned. He needed to go back that very morning despite 
what other pressing matters might be lying on his desk. 

He stopped only briefly at the police station, to check his e-mail and
messages before driving out to Bramble Dyke. The fog, which had 
descended the following afternoon, hadn't lifted a bit; in fact it was 
thicker if anything, causing McPherson to curse beneath his breath at 
the necessity to reduce speed to a crawl. 

He almost drove past the place in the gloom, pulling to a halt just as
the twin chimneystacks of the old house reared up out of the fog, like 
eerie funnels of a ghost liner. They sent a shiver down his spine, just 
for a moment. Right now this fenland wilderness might have been a 
hunting ground for lost souls. Giant, shapeless forms that swayed over 
him like dark shadows in the grey swirl, might only have belonged to 
the grey conifers bordering Tomblin's property to his right, but it 
would have been easy to think of them in a much more menacing light. 

The house was in such a woefully neglected state that McPherson found it
difficult to imagine how it could possibly have provided a comfortable 
and respectable abode for a family, though he knew that at some early 
stage of its existence it must have fulfilled the function. He paused 
before forcing the front door open, taking a deep breath to combat the 
musty, sweet and sour smelling odour he knew would sweep over him the 
moment he did so. 

Inside the gloomy interior he could see footmarks on the bare boards. He
felt his heart rate begin to increase, just a minor acceleration but 
noticeable, because the marks were fresh, and they tracked in only one 
direction – up the stairway towards the bedrooms. 

He heard a creaking sound just as he reached the staircase; it came from
the upper floor. Perhaps it should have served as a warning, a pointed 
reminder that to go in search of the cause was foolish, that he should 
summon assistance, and summon it now. But he knew that assistance would 
be several miles away, and he wasn't prepared to wait even though he 
knew he was disregarding the old fashioned cliché, “whatever goes up 
must come down,” and in that same instant he thought he saw a movement, 
a quickly moving shadow merging with the poor light. 

He crept up the stairway towards it, his adrenaline beginning to surge,
but even as he did so any suggestion of activity above seemed to melt 
away, as if what he'd thought he'd seen had been a product of his 
fuelled up imagination. But the footmarks weren't, and that much alone 
was enough to propel him forwards, his lanky legs ascending the stairs 
two at a time. Then with the speed of a rapier convincing him that fact 
wasn't fiction, the sound of heavy feet rampaging down towards him 
stopped McPherson in his tracks, an unsteady hand shooting 
instinctively out to grasp the railing for precarious and tenuous 
support. But it was too little and too late to enable him to withstand 
the impact of the human avalanche that came rushing into him and 
through him in a frantic fury. He was flung backward as the figure 
surged over him, the back of his head meeting the stairs with a crunch, 
and then the sensation of tumbling down the three or four stairs he'd 
climbed only an instant ago, like some unwilling incompetent acrobat. 
Then the lights went out. 

It seemed to him, as he rose gingerly to his feet, that he'd been in the
twilight world for an age, though in all probability it was just a few 
short seconds. But by the time McPherson had lurched along the passage 
like a disorientated drunk, dimly registering the fresh set of 
footmarks that lead towards the main door, the intruder had disappeared 
into obscurity leaving him with an aching head as a legacy. 

He blinked as he came to terms with daylight, that no matter how bleak
and foggy, still contrasted vividly with the internal gloom, so that 
tiny daggers of pain shot their sharp points into his head as he 
struggled to focus on the patch of rain soaked bog for any sign of 
tracks. But they had submerged readily into the rain-drenched earth and 
in any case he was no longer in a fit state to pursue the intruder. 
Instead, he rested for a moment, the flat of his hand against his 
throbbing forehead, his other hand clasped tightly around the door 
jamb, before he returned to the dingy interior and began to stumble up 
the staircase, hoping against hope that the disturbed intruder had left 
him something to go on. He reached the halfway point and arched his 
painful head upwards at the dark gap, which had suddenly seemed to 
emerge from the ceiling above the landing, like a tiny window on a 
star-less night. 

Only it wasn't a window and he wasn't staring into the darkest recesses
of the universe. The attic was open, it's cover drawn back so that the 
peeling plaster covered the landing like crisp snowdrops. The one place 
he'd never given thought to, but then why should he when the rest of 
the place had been stripped threadbare and left to rot. But now it 
stood gaping at him, like open invitation to sample the secrets of a 
dark Aladdin's cave. Something had caused the intruder to search it; 
either that or he'd been about to. Now, McPherson needed to know why. 
He didn't relish the prospect of forcing himself up through the hatch 
in his present condition. He wouldn't have relished it if he'd been 
fully fit, but he had to be game for a try. He stretched his lanky 
frame so that the muscles at the base of his neck seemed to scream at 
his already painful head, moulding into an agony that he struggled 
unsuccessfully to blot out. He placed his hands flat against the hatch 
rims and levered for all he was worth, swinging his legs up and placing 
them against the walls in one swift but anguished movement, their 
contact lending his overburdened arms valuable support as he wrenched 
himself through the narrow opening. Scrambling to his feet, his lungs 
searing at the dusty odour that invaded them, he did something he 
should have done when he first encountered movement on the stairway – 
he fumbled in his pocket for his torch and shone it around the enclosed 
space. There was the sound of urgent flapping spreading around the 
rafters, resounding around them like crazed jumping jacks, and from the 
gaps in the eroding roof he could see that he had disturbed a hoard of 
bats. But even as his pounding heart began to relent upon realisation 
that he had not entered a live arsenal of fireworks, his torch, aided 
by long, thin fingers of daylight, rested on a low, shifting shape in 
the corner. His heart had begun to pound again. 


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