Haunted Shadows 1: Sickness Behind Young Eyes Read online

  This book is dedicated to my wife,

  who has taught me the true meaning of horror.

  1

  As the car rumbled over the rough country road I got the sense the sky was closing in on us, like the nearer we got to the village the more the world shrank. Seagulls circled overhead and shrieked into the air. Jeremiah drove. I sat in the passenger seat and leafed through my notes, pausing from time to time to stare through the window as the pale greens of the Scottish countryside rolled by.

  It looked like a peaceful area, but it was desolate. Weeds scratched through the grass and the ruins of decades old cobble-stoned walls lined the roads. The greenery grew up to the side of the road and then suddenly stopped at the tarmac, as though it were surprised at the sudden intrusion onto its spread. I reached for the radio dial.

  “Don't touch that,” said Jeremiah.

  “Why?”

  “It interrupts me thinking.”

  They were the first words he'd said in over an hour, and without the radio on all I could hear was the hum of the engine and patters of rain of the windscreen. The wipers moved hypnotically back and forth, each swipe clearing my view of the murky countryside. I couldn’t stand silence. Not when I was with another person. I didn’t mind it when I was alone studying or writing an assignment, but even then I had the TV on low volume to get some background noise.

  Enough was enough. Why had he agreed to the interview if he wasn't going to talk to me? What was either of us getting out of the whole thing? Professor Higson had warned me about Jeremiah. How stubborn he could be. How he was rude just for the hell of it. I wasn't going to pussy foot around him.

  “Why do you do it?” I asked.

  He glanced at me and then back at the road. He held onto the wheel as though he were a student driver and needed complete concentration. He was so wooden, like there was no life to him at all.

  “My professor says you're subconsciously seeking out your own death, but you're too scared to take the matter in your own hands. He says you’re waiting for something else to do it for you.”

  “Your professor needs a glass of water to help swallow the thesaurus.” he said.

  I wondered why I'd agreed to come. Travelling all the way up to Scotland to investigate an urban legend that anyone with even a shred of logic would know was bullshit. Did he really believe in this stuff? His reputation was dirt, but no-one ever doubted his intellect. Maybe he was dangerous. Perhaps a twenty two year old woman shouldn't travel with a man she hardly knew to score extra credit with her professor.

  Jeremiah’s bulk threatened to spill over the edges of the driver seat, but his long leather coat was zipped, buckled, and it managed to reign in his body. His hair was an unwashed swirl of ginger that swept across his forehead. His face reminded me of my alcoholic uncle’s; slightly bloated and red all-over, but with an intelligence behind it. Except that I knew that Jeremiah didn't drink.

  I opened my mouth to try and start a conversation again, but I thought better of it. I sighed. Jeremiah reached forward and turned the dial of the radio. The car filled with the sounds of an upbeat pop song. He pressed a button and it was replaced by something classical.

  “If you have to have music we'll at least have something I like,” he said.

  It was like I was just a nuisance to him. I had felt that way since I first wrote to him requesting the interview. I remembered his reply to me, on which he'd spent as little energy as possible.

  'No.'

  That's all I got. It was only when I dropped Professor Higson's name that Jeremiah opened up to the idea. Said he wouldn't do a normal sit-down interview, but he was investigating something up in a little Scottish village. If I really wanted to get the inside scoop I could join him. Otherwise, he didn't give a crap. I remembered telling Professor Higson about it.

  "Do you think it's, you know, some kind of sex thing?"

  Higson leant forward with his elbows on his desk. His tie was fastened so tight that it threatened to strangle him.

  "Jeremiah Cosgrove is a lot of things, but he's no pervert. He isn't interested in your body Ella."

  “Then what is he after?”

  “Me. Or what I can get him, anyway. He's been hounding me for access to an experiment the university carried out in the eighties.”

  “So what's the big deal?”

  Higson tapped his pen on the desk. His initials were carved into the tip. “I want to find something out from him, but he isn't willing to trade. No quid pro quo. It has to be his way.”

  I sensed a history between the two men, and it felt like I was stuck in the middle. Like they were old friends with a decade-long feud between them. Perhaps I should have picked something else for my dissertation.

  “Maybe the real life study of the occult and urban legends is a stupid thing to write about,” I said.

  “No Ella, you're on the right track. Go with him, get a little life experience.”

  “Life experience won’t get my dissertation finished.”

  “Just remember what we've spoken about in class. These dark tales and fancies, they're all bollocks. They've always got their roots in reality, some kind of logical explanation.”

  I leaned forward, looked him in the eyes. "Let's say I do. Will you recommend me for the master’s program?”

  Higson sighed. He rubbed his forehead. “You know I can't do that. You just don't have the grades.”

  “I need this, professor.”

  "A master’s degree isn't everything. There are lots of avenues you can take when you leave university.”

  “It's everything to me.”

  I was getting worked up. We'd had this conversation before. He liked me and I knew I was his favourite pupil. So why wouldn't he recommend me? I’d poured too many hours into this to hit a block in the road. I’d turned down party invites and rejected phone calls until one by one my friends stopped dialling my number. This was all I had.

  The professor bit his bottom lip. Then he picked up the pen from his desk and stared at it for a while, deep in thought.

  “Do one thing for me, and I'll see what I can do about recommending you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Go on Jeremiah’s trip, his investigation, whatever he wants to call it. Find out one thing for me. Find out what happened in Bruges.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ask him about Bruges in '99. Find out what really happened - no lies, no bullshit. Then I will recommend you.”

  The car hit a pothole and jolted me out of thought. The village was ahead of us. It was a collection of ten or so houses that looked like they grew out of the fields. As though the stone and the grass were melding together, and someday the countryside would rise and devour the buildings. It seemed like the kind of place you'd go to die when your kids had grown up and left you.

  “Are you going to tell me why we're here now?” I asked.

  “You wanted to learn what I do. Well here's the first lesson. I listen.”

  I couldn't believe a person could be so socially inept. I bit back my anger.

  “What exactly are we listening to?”

  “Everything.”

  He turned the radio down.

  I listened. All I could hear was the car engine turning over. Then my breath as it left my mouth. A faint rattle coming from one of the windows at the back of the car.

  Jeremiah seemed occupied with something, like he heard something I couldn’t. His eyes were far away, not staring at the road but looking somewhere I couldn't see. They were pointed at the village in front of us but they seemed to look beyond it at the same time.

  The stone houses got closer and I realised ho
w run down they were. They must have been built hundreds of years ago, and the centuries had taken their toll on the battered stonework. Something about the village and the way it jutted out of the fields made me uneasy. I missed Manchester and the hustle of the city and the knowledge that you were surrounded by thousands of other people. Out here I felt like we were the only people in the world.

  2

  We were staying in the only pub in the village. It was a run-down inn that served ale and cider to the locals. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other’s names, their gossip, what kind of cereal they ate in the morning. The landlady was a stern old woman called Marsha. She motioned us into the pub without even a hello, just looked us up and down with a grimace.

  “How many rooms?”

  Did she think we were going to share? Jeremiah had twenty years on me at least. No offence, but an overweight grump wasn't my type. I hated her attitude. Luckily Jeremiah was a match for it.

  “Did you not hear me on the phone? Thought I was explicit. Two rooms.” He held up two fingers. Then he looked back at her. “This is what fingers look like when they’re not webbed.”

  Marsha turned and walked through the pub and passed the bar.

  In a different situation with different company the pub might have been quaint. Old wooden beams ran across the ceiling. A real log-burner fire filled the air with a smoky smell. I could picture taking a table in the corner and cosying up to someone. Having a warm stew and then drinking beer and playing scrabble. Pity I hadn't met anyone I could do that with in a long time.

  In this environment the place didn't warm on me at all. Along with the smoky smell there was one of damp, like it had rained and the water had seeped inside and dried into the walls. The furniture was all mixed up like they'd collected it over the years, some chairs looked comfy, and others like they would break your back. Holes dotted the walls where a dartboard had been in place at some point.

  Marsha stood in a doorway across from us with her hands on her hips. She reminded me of an old school teacher I once had, the kind who saw the kids as nothing but a hassle. Someone who saw teaching as a job to be groaned through rather than something to love.

  “It's this way.”

  We followed her upstairs. I struggled getting my travel case up the steep wooden steps. Jeremiah didn't help. At the top of the landing she pointed at two doorways.

  “You decide which one belongs to who. I lock the doors at ten, so you better be back because I won't get out of bed to let you in. Breakfast is at six.”

  “Six?” I said, incredulous.

  She had me a sharp look. Her eyes narrowed.

  “We keep hardworking hours round here, lady.”

  She turned and walked down the steps. When her feet touched the bottom Jeremiah turned to me.

  “Landladies are usually a source of local information. This one’s a bitch. Don't talk to her, don’t tell her about anything we see.”

  “What are we likely to see?”

  Jeremiah paused, as if wondering what to tell me. I badly wanted to know. He'd given me almost no information on what the trip entailed other than where we were going and how long we'd be. I knew it would be something unusual, but going by Jeremiah’s history, that could mean anything.

  “Dump your things then come to my room.”

  In my room there was a bed that looked slightly smaller than a double. Fine for me, but I imagined that Jeremiah would struggle with his. There was a small sink, a dresser and a window that looked onto the village. I turned the tap on the sink but nothing happened. I looked under the basin and found the pipe had been disconnected. I was in a hurry to hear what Jeremiah had to say so I didn't unpack my stuff.

  Jeremiah's room was the same except that I saw him washing his hands in the sink.

  “My sink doesn't work,” I said.

  “Ask for your money back,” he called over his shoulder. “Oh, wait. You’re not paying.”

  “Hope this hell hole isn’t costing too much.”

  “You’ve got your own bathroom haven’t you? So you don’t need the extra sink.”

  “Stuff like that just bothers me,” I said.

  “You need to learn which things are worth getting angry about in life and which aren’t.”

  I didn't want to seem fussy. That was exactly the sort of attitude that would lower me in Jeremiah’s estimation. Not that I actually cared about his opinion, but if he didn't see me as an equal he would carry on treating me like a nuisance.

  I pulled the chair from under his dresser. Jeremiah had found the time to unpack some of his things, and on the dresser I saw a collection of books. An Encyclopaedia of the Occult. Darsley's Dreams and Fantasies of the Fantastic and the Uncanny. A Modern Guide to the Other. Just some light reading, then. The books were well–worn and each had index cards of various colours jutting from the pages.

  Jeremiah turned from the dresser. He unfastened the buckles in his coat and took it off. Seeing there was no coat stand, he threw the coat onto the bed. I was surprised. He looked a lot slimmer without the coat. Still overweight, but more like an older guy that had let himself go a bit. I could imagine him being slim in his younger days. What happened to him? Probably the same thing that happened to every guy as they got older. He’d gone to pasture.

  Jeremiah sat on the end of the bed and faced me. For the first time I felt like he was actually paying some attention to me, rather than speaking from the corner of his mouth. He looked into my eyes and I stared right back, not wanting to seem nervous.

  “What are your beliefs?” He said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Religion?

  "I'm an atheist."

  “Astrology?”

  “It's a crock.”

  “Do you look behind you when you walk through your house alone?”

  Suddenly I was the one being interviewed. I felt like he was writing a paper about me, not the other way round. But his would just be stored in his head, like he was building a fact file on me. I got the impression there was a lot in Jeremiah’s head. Like when he told me to listen in the car. He was taking in his surroundings, feeding on something I couldn't quite see or hear.

  “I live in dorms,” I said.

  Jeremiah shifted his weight on the bed.

  “When you were little, did you sleep with the light on?”

  I thought back. From six through to twelve years old the light stayed on every night. One of my foster dads and I had an understanding that he'd look in on me, and only after he knew I was asleep would he turn off the light. I also had a lamp next to the bed with the switch within easy reach, just in case I woke up during the night.

  “No,” I said.

  “I don't believe you.”

  My face bristled. “Believe what you want.”

  Jeremiah stood up and walked toward me. He reached behind me and picked up a book from the dresser, then sat back down on the bed. The old frame sagged under him with a creak. I wondered how much weight it had supported over the years, how many people had slept in this room. He opened the book and flipped through the pages. He settled on the one he wanted and read.

  “A child needs light because they fear what they will find in the dark. But it is not always the dark that scares them; sometimes it is the idea that when they turn off the light, there will be nothing. In the darkness their world is devoured."

  “Spooky. What's the relevance?”

  He put the book down next to him. There was a serious look to his eyes. Not that he'd ever seemed light hearted. “Do you know what I do, what I am?”

  “You study the occult.”

  He shook his head. “Your professor studies the occult. I live it. I meet people Ella, I see things. Things that can't be dismissed in the pages of the book. But nor can they be believed by the eyes that see them.”

  Was this a riddle? I realised that getting anything from him was going to be tough. The man didn't open up or speak clearly. He seemed to want to mystify me, but at the
same time I knew there was something underneath. Some truth. But how would I get there? How would I follow Professor Higson’s request and find out what happened in Bruges? If this was some big secret, how would I get the truth from a man who gave nothing away?

  Jeremiah carried on. “Six months ago I got a letter. That's nothing new, I get dozens a month. All of them ask me to go here and there to investigate some mystery. If I followed them all I'd be running round like a blue-arsed fly. And most are just shite.”

  “And this one?”

  “This one’s real.”

  He picked up the book and turned to the back. He pulled out a letter from between the pages. It was lined paper torn from a notebook. I couldn't see the words but the handwriting was unkempt, like that of a child's but with a slight maturity that came from a man’s hand.