Three Mile Drove, Chapter Twenty Three (standard:horror, 3081 words) [24/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Dec 30 2007	Views/Reads: 2711/1851	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Continuation of a horror story set in the Fens. Darren Goldwater fears for his life in conditions he couldn't have dreamed existed.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Tomblin turned and stood before him, a mountain of a man, even more
intimidating now than the night he'd first laid eyes on him. Viewed 
from where he was, tied to the wooded barn stanchion and looking up 
into his face, the yellow teeth he bared seemed to have an extra 
largeness and sharpness about them. 

‘Seems strangers can't do what they're told, they can't keep their noses
out.' Tomblin leaned forward, placing his hands on Darren's lapels and 
jerking him forward so that the bonds securing him to the stanchion cut 
deeply into his wrists. He cried out in pain. 

‘Ain't no use screaming fella. Ain't nobody going to find you out here,
ain't nobody going to even try.' Tomblin sneered, flinging him back 
against the stanchion, Darren felt his back burn from the force of it. 
‘You should have stayed out, kept well away, city dweller, townie, 
whatever you are you've no rights around here. You lost the last one 
when you set fire to the house.' 

Tomblin began to pace back and forth, Darren noticed him cast a fierce
eye on the mutants cackling in the far corner. 

Mutants, that was the only word he could use to describe them. 

But Darren noticed something more than Tomblin's natural violence and
aggression, and although he feared for his life more than ever before, 
he sensed something more in Tomblin's behaviour. The continued pacing 
told him as much as the hand that raked repeatedly through his hair. 

For all his threatening violence and aggression, Tomblin didn't know
what to do with him. And Tomblin seemed convinced he'd set fire to the 
house, but where had he been if he'd not done that much himself? How 
could he not have seen the fire from his own house? Unless he'd been in 
this wilderness all the while... 

But then if Tomblin hadn't done, then who had? Finding the kids locked
in that room while the fire raged above had been no accident... 

One thing was certain though, he might have suddenly been cast back
three hundred years if he didn't know better, and if he spent any 
length of time in this place he'd soon lose all sense of rationality, 
he'd become the latest addition to the freak show. 

Darren sighed, the droplets of rain had soaked him through but of course
Tomblin wasn't concerned about that. Tomblin was worried as much as he 
was violent. Worried perhaps that someone else might follow him, 
witness these disgusting conditions and the assembly of retarded and 
grossly deformed kids. Perhaps find more. 

But Tomblin was also unstable, you didn't have to be a psychiatrist to
figure that one out. In the end he couldn't envisage anything else 
other than ending up dead. All he could do was to play for time, it 
might serve no purpose, but it wasn't in his nature to give up so 
easily. 

‘I don't understand this, I don't want to understand it. I thought these
sort of freaks only existed in fiction books. I only want to find 
the...' 

‘Freaks you call them,' Tomblin turned angrily, ‘We've only got our own
cells to breed from, only sometimes it don't happen the way it should, 
and there ain't nothing you can do, ‘cause that's the way God made 
them.' 

‘What's God got to do with it, it's utterly vile,' Darren forced the
words from his mouth, expecting the ultimate response to his 
recklessness, but Tomblin hadn't heard, he'd moved across the barn to 
the oil lamp, sweeping it up with his hand. Darren couldn't help but 
notice the huge hands and tiny fingers, and the way he limped at speed 
to the far corner. ‘You talk about fiction, fella, but don't you know 
fiction exists through fact. I ain't so thick I can't see that. And 
these creatures that you see here prove it.' 

He shone the light into their faces, producing an outburst of shrieks,
which rifled through Darren's ears. ‘Each one of them has something the 
other wants – a good eye, a good arm, it's just wrong pieces on wrong 
bodies, that's what it amounts to. And it ain't their fault.' 

Now in the light of the oil lamp, the ugliness of Tomblin's features –
the huge nose, large forehead, deep set eyes, gross ears that seemed 
like jug handles, uneven jutting jaw... were never better displayed. 

‘I think it amounts to a lot more than that. This is revolting,' Darren
shouted at the top of his voice. He was losing control of his senses 
and emotions, he knew that. The smell, the sights, the disgusting state 
of these mutants, it was all too much. 

‘But there's more to this than revulsion, I reckon you've abducted a
kid, God only knows why, introducing her to this. You know where she 
is, don't you. And that other girl I saw, it's obvious she don't belong 
here, give them to me and I'll go.' 

Darren's head began to spin, a sudden sickness surged through him, but
he wasn't succumbing to it. Not yet. 

‘Abducted a kid? You mean taking without consent,' Tomblin's face
broadened into an ugly sneer, ‘yeah I ain't so thick I don't know what 
the word means fella,' he placed a hand to the neck of his tee shirt, 
and clutched at something. In the light thrown by the lamp it seemed 
like some kind of heavy gold chain, not the sort of thing he expected 
Tomblin to possess. He found himself briefly wondering who he'd 
plundered it from. 

‘What makes you think I know anything about any kid – and anyway how
comes someone who sets fire to a house full of kids gives a fuck? 
Answer me that fella!' 

Beside him the collection of misfits began to shriek and clamour, as if
they understood what Tomblin was saying. He threw an angry hand in 
their direction, then cast a wary eye on the one he called Joseph. Its 
twisted mouth creased into a contemptuous smile. Darren looked away, he 
didn't think anything that gross could even manage a smile; it only 
seemed to make it more loathsome. Then it faded, as crouched in the 
corner it turned its small, hooded eyes upon him menacingly. An instant 
ago there had been a certain satisfaction on that face; it might be 
deformed and ugly, but it seemed to possess more evil than anything 
he'd seen, and despite that gross deformity, there was some kind of 
basic intelligence. It told him that he'd struck head on, that it knew 
about the missing child. 

Tomblin seemed to realise what Darren had been thinking. He shrugged,
‘Shame about the kid,' he said, as if he didn't really mean it, ‘nice 
enough kid, only Joseph didn't see it that way, he didn't take to her.' 
Tomblin shuffled his feet, turning his gaze on the large, deformed 
figure, ‘Did you now? He got hold of her one day when I weren't 
looking; I tried to free her but I weren't quick enough, she was 
already dead before I got her out of his arms. Joseph didn't mean it, 
he doesn't understand, see?' 

Darren forced himself to look at the face again, driven by disgust. Oh
Joseph understood alright. He saw the slight incline of the head, the 
open mouth and broken yellow teeth. His focus fell on Joseph's arms and 
hands. Thick arms and hands; out of proportion with the skinny hunched 
body, with hands that might have been carbon copies of Tomblin's. 
Double the size of his own, but with small, skeletal fingers. He almost 
choked, overcome with nausea. That the evil monster in the corner, 
obviously the ring leader of these beings, was capable of murder he 
didn't doubt one bit. Even Tomblin, he noticed, seemed to be wary of 
it. 

It came to Darren then, as a bolt of lightning illuminated the barn,
just what his own fate would be. He tried a sudden wrench on the 
bonding with all his might, but the rope just bit deeper into his 
wrists. 

‘Wouldn't do you no good, anyhow stranger. You wouldn't even make it to
the door, let alone find a way back to your cosy city dweller life.' 

‘Why abduct the poor kid in the first place!' Darren shouted above the
thunder, ‘surely not just to feed your sick relations.' 

‘But sick relations are just what they are, don't you see that. Don't
you listen, fella?' Tomblin glanced again at Joseph with what Darren 
thought was his version of a smile. ‘It's not their fault, I told you 
that, didn't I? That's why the child was abducted as you say in your 
city jargon. So that when she was old enough, when she'd got used to 
our little family, she might help us produce normal offspring, help put 
everything right. But it wasn't to be, was it Joseph?' 

‘For Christ's sake, let me out of here, I've heard enough.' Darren
struggled for breath; his head was spinning so fast he might have spent 
night and day on a roller coaster. ‘People will come looking for me.' 

Tomblin gave a wild laugh that caught in his throat, ‘Come looking for
you – here? On a night like this.' He spread his big arms wide, turning 
to the mutants who began a chorus of shrieks so loud that not even the 
wind and thunder were audible. ‘Let me tell you stranger, folk don't 
know, they don't care whether this place exists at the best of times, 
let alone on a night like this. You've not got a chance in hell now of 
anybody finding you. But don't fret, so.' 

Darren saw a fleeting smile cross Tomblin's face, watched as he walked
to the opposite corner of the barn, oil lamp in his hand. The dwindling 
light revealed the girl he had seen run from the house, her face was 
dirty, her hair matted and soiled, and it seemed to her now that her 
face looked oddly familiar. 

Darren saw the girl's features reflect apprehension and then fear as
Tomblin approached, he saw her flinch and then rasped his wrists on the 
rope as he lurched forward trying to break free. 

Tomblin stretched his free arm, grabbing the girl and dragging her
towards him. Thoughts began racing through his mind as vividly as the 
lightning bolts, which flashed through the night, uncontrollable, 
anguished thoughts. In the corner, where the others sat, lightning 
suddenly flashed yellow forks and as it did so Tomblin turned, 
beckoning Joseph to his side. Despite his withered frame he was there 
with a speed that disturbed him. 

Tomblin raised the oil lamp high, narrowed eyes suddenly wide and
intense, ‘These people don't get much entertainment, I think it's time 
they did, don't you? You might also find you enjoy it, besides 
afterwards I might consider letting you go.' 

He placed the oil lamp carefully aside, so that its glow flooded the
makeshift arena. ‘ You and her. Do it now.' 

Darren didn't think he could feel any sicker, but the prospect of mating
with a girl who was still a child pushed his repulsion to new limits. 
As for letting him go, he didn't believe that one bit. He was going to 
be fodder for Joseph and there was no way out of here other than to use 
his initiative. At present, that was at a pretty low ebb. 

Tomblin pointed a finger at Darren and then lowered it to the rope,
‘Joseph, free the stranger for a while, let the exhibition begin.' 

It all happened so quickly, Joseph simply bent behind him, the powerful
arms breaking the rope as though it were thread. 

Darren glanced around, if he was going to get out he had to do it now,
the moment the ogre released its grip, but even as the thought crossed 
his mind he dismissed it. He couldn't just run and leave the child, and 
yet he couldn't take her either, he'd never make it, he didn't doubt 
that Joseph would see to that even if Tomblin didn't. He knew it was 
capable of inflicting injury as well as pain, Tomblin's own words had 
confirmed that. He tried to keep his eyes on the girl, to somehow 
reassure her, but it was a hopeless task, her own eyes were flashing in 
all directions. 

‘Get on with it,' Tomblin growled, ‘just do what's natural, it's the
oldest thing since time began, as if you didn't know.' 

Darren glared, he was about to let his emotions get the better of him
until Tomblin's attention was distracted by a sudden flapping coming 
from the area where he'd first seen the girl. It was the kind of sound 
that reminded him of a tent with a couple of pegs removed, and he 
watched as Tomblin shone the lamp, moving towards it with a speed that 
accentuated his limp. 

The big deformed figure of Joseph stood over them both, he could feel
the stench of his rotting breath and somewhere in the back of his mind 
was the fear that the wretched thing might strike while Tomblin was 
preoccupied, before he'd a chance to even think of a way out. The 
remaining clan members, half a dozen or so Darren assessed, had emerged 
from their spot and began circling them. Lightning flashed its 
brightness into the semi darkness making it seem like a neon sign on 
overload, its effect increased by the glare of the oil lamp, as 
Tomblin, finding nothing amiss, began to retrace his steps. 

Darren tried to keep his eyes on the girl despite the wildness around
him, he didn't know how much English she understood, perhaps none, but 
her physical development was normal. There was a chance she might 
understand. 

He took a quick glance at Tomblin, who was returning at speed. He had
only seconds to get his message across. 

‘I'm not going to hurt you; I'm not going to do anything to you. Just
trust me. Nod if you understand.' 

But she didn't nod, and Darren supposed she was either too frightened,
or backward to do much of anything. Slowly, surrounded by malformed 
figures the like of which he'd never seen, amidst the cacophony of 
their shrieks, the wind and the thunder, Darren slowly unbuttoned his 
jeans. He took the girl in his arms, sinking slowly with her to the 
ground. The girl began to writhe and scream. 


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