The ultimate horror boxs.., p.39
The Ultimate Horror Boxset (10 Terrifying Novels), page 39
Emily fought against her bonds again. "Martha lies! I am innocent. Does ten years of marriage mean nothing, dear husband?"
Father Cotton had heard enough and thrust out his bible like a shield, its pages fluttering in the wind. "You have chance to repent, creature, but seek instead to bend and manipulate. To ask Jonathan to intervene now is to condemn his soul alongside your own. You were witnessed at the crime scene, Emily Tanner, young blood still staining your hands. The Church finds you guilty of witchcraft!"
"You mean YOU find me guilty of witchcraft, Father Cotton. Damn you and your blind righteousness!" She glowered upon every man, woman, and child assembled by the riverside, and directed her judgement at them all. "Damn you all to the darkest hell. I am no witch. I am no child butcher. It is all of you who are guilty. YOU who judge with fear and loathing, while forsaking love and compassion. For years I have lived amongst you. Your neighbour, your friend..." she looked at Jonathan. "Your wife!"
"And you have given your husband no family," someone shouted. "The ungodly cannot bare children. They are cursed barren. Harlot!"
"Witch!"
"Whore!"
"Siren!"
Emily spotted one of her hecklers—Thompson, the widowed sheep farmer—and whipped a gaze upon him so fierce that he shrank back into the crowd like a bleeting calf. Even Father Cotton shuddered at the sheer malice in the creature's eyes. To think he had judged her a simple woman for so many years. In this, he had truly failed.
"It is you who will be cursed if you do this!" Emily promised the crowd, her venom only increasing. "Your souls will burn in the Abyss. You shall feed on mud and rotting flesh like meal worms."
Thompson, the widow, re-emerged and thrust a trembling finger at her. "She admits it! She places a hex upon us! A witch!"
"Lies!" shouted Emily. "All lies. Where is the abbot? Does he know you intend murder this night, Father? Has the Church not tired of your unceasing condemnations? Is it not your nature that should stand judged?"
Father Cotton gritted his teeth and tried not to lose composure. This was the way of darkness—to seek out the light and try to extinguish it. This witch would not pollute his belief in himself. He would not allow it. "The abbot is infirmed due to a hex most likely placed upon his soul by you!" A howling gust rose up and buffeted his woollen habit, aggravating the tender wounds beneath. "We found his Holiness lying in his vestry, furnace-hot and babbling."
"A simple fever, surely?" cried Emily.
"Quiet beast! Your corruption is at an end. Tonight the village shall weep for the woman you were, and celebrate the vanquishing of the evil you have become. May your butchered victims rest in a peace you shall never know."
Emily thrashed against her bonds like a wild animal, drawing blood from her slender wrists. She kicked her bare feet amongst the leaves and flicked them at the crowd—a defiant, yet ineffectual gesture. "I wish upon you eternal agony," she screeched, tears soaking her face. "I will see it so!"
Father Cotton gave no reply. He returned the bible to his chest and placed out an open hand, summoning Jonathan, who passed him a lit torch. Emily moaned at her husband's betrayal, and he sheepishly rejoined the crowd. Father Cotton pitied the heartbroken tailor, for it was the truest of tortures for a righteous man to face—the condemnation of a loved one. The spurning of a wife was perhaps the pinnacle of righteous sacrifice. His reward would come in the next life.
Father Cotton strode towards the pyre, torch lofted above his head. "Emily Tanner. As your flesh burns and agony cleanses you, Heaven will not await. Consider your misdeeds, but know that no chance for atonement shall come. Eternity is a barren wasteland of everlasting solitude to you."
"I did not kill the Hamleigh twins! You condemn an innocent woman this night, and you shall know the consequences."
Father Cotton dropped the torch into the crisp, dead leaves. The conflagration was immediate. Flames leapt in a circle around Emily's feet and she screamed, but only in fear just now, for the pain was yet to begin. The dusk turned orange, and the crowd looked upon one another's faces. None showed regret. They did the Lord's work today: ending the life of a child killer.
Emily's screams halted as she bit down on her tongue. More tears came, along with blood from her mouth. The look she gave the crowd was no longer condemning, but pleading. All evil quivered before the glory of God, and Father Cotton was a beacon shining said glory unto every patch of shadow. He would hold the divine image of Emily's broken will in his mind tonight as he flagellated himself before the statue of Saint Adolphus, the Martyr. No better way to wash the wretchedness from his soul.
Tomorrow, there would more glory to shine.
Emily's screams increased pitch. Flames circled inward, devouring the dry leaves piled at her feet. Her pale skin turned pink, and blistered, while the stench of burning meat made those in the crowd cover their noses. These were godly people, and watching human flesh burn was a dark deed. Yet it was necessary. All must see justice done this night. The village needed to shed its sin alongside Emily Tanner.
Forgive us Lord for our sins.
Emily's woollen nightdress ignited, and her high-pitched screams turned low and bovine. In unison, and without prompting, the villagers began chanting the Lord's prayer.
“Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The sinew of Emily's legs reduced to fat, spitting from her bones as her body melted. Blood turned black and curdled. Her nightdress shrivelled away to nothing and exposed her nakedness. The points of her breasts popped like carbuncles and drizzled down her chest. Silky golden hair curled in on itself and smoked before falling away from her glistening scalp. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her bellows became whimpers. A prayer-length later Emily Tanner was a charred skull staring back at them.
Then the flames leapt higher into the night sky and she vanished from them forever.
But the blackened oak tree remained. Even in the inferno, it persisted holding onto the blackened earth. Father Cotton would command the monks from the abbey to fell the ungodly thing at dawn, but first he turned to the crowd. "We did the Lord's work today, my children. Be not troubled, for the righteous act is never the easy one. Go home to your loved ones and pray, for tomorrow is another day."
A roaring gust came off the river, summoned by the hungry fire. Hot air drew sweat from the brows of those closest, including Father Cotton, and many moved away. Father Cotton clutched his bible in one hand and used his other to wrangle the hair from his face. As he did so, pain flared in his left eyelid. "Jesus Mary!"
"Father?" said Jonathan, splitting from the crowd and hurrying to his aid. "What is wrong?"
Father Cotton pressed his palm against his burning eyelid and tried to push the pain away. "It is nothing, good Jonathan. An ember from the flames. We should depart this place, lest its echoes haunt us too long."
"Of course, Father."
Jonathan attempted to ease him away, but he shrugged the gesture off, angered by the pain still flaring in his eyelid and baleful of pity from a lowly man such as Jonathan. "I hope days to come do not reveal you complicit in your wife's actions, Jonathan Tanner. May the Lord strike you to ash if you are."
Jonathan staggered as if struck. "I swear it, Father. I had no idea. If I had known..."
An angry buzz drowned out Jonathan's words and indeed replaced all sound in the space beside the river. The departing crowd stopped and glanced back at the pyre. The inferno had risen high, illuminating the sky red, but its spreading glow was not yet finished. Orange tendrils dispelled the dusk in every direction. Embers spewed forth into the frigid gloom like a swarm of bees.
A literal swarm.
Fiery specks fluttered on the air, almost serenely, but then they descended savagely upon the crowd. The villagers cried out in pain and confusion. Father Cotton turned a full circle, trying to decipher the Lord's will in what he was seeing.
What was he seeing?
His eyes confused, now buzzing filled his ears.
Nearby, Jonathan batted at himself hysterically, an angry welt rising quickly on one cheek. A wasp formed of flame and crawled along his jawline. "It's Emily," he cried. "She has cast a hex upon us. She swore it. Dear God, what folly have we brought?"
Father Cotton watched the pyre in awe, its flames whipping like enlivened sprites. Thousands more spiteful embers grabbed hold of the wind and descended upon the screaming villagers, wrenching out their torment, but a separate swarm now headed toward him alone, marking him out, and chattering in his ears so loud his brain ached. He threw up his arms to shield himself, dropping his bible in the slick, black mud. His mouth opened to scream, but before he could make a sound, searing agony filled his throat. Jonathan, prisoner to his own panic, collided with him and knocked them both to the ground. From on his back, Father Cotton stared into the flames. The shadow of a woman looked back at him. Then, a hundred embers engulfed his face and stung the sight from his eyes.
Unable to see, unable to speak, he prayed to the Lord for help.
But the Lord was not there.
Chapter
Two
"So, you'll call me when you get to your sister's?" said Tom as he exited the highway and joined a roundabout decorated with dainty pink flowers.
Sophie pressed her forehead against the window and stared out at the drizzle. Apt weather for how she was feeling. "What's the point?" she said. "We're getting divorced, Tom. We don't need to check in with each other anymore."
Tom squeezed the steering wheel—she could tell because his knuckles whitened and his wedding ring lifted away from his finger. "Just because you don't want to be my wife anymore doesn't mean you're dead to me, Soph! Let me know you're safe so I can sleep tonight, yes?"
"I'm not your concern anymore."
"I'll decide when you're no longer my concern."
Sophie pulled her head away from the window, leaving makeup on the glass, and looked at him. She was too tired to argue—the kind of tired that came from being so so unhappy for so so long. "Fine. I'll call you once I get there, but that's it. We need space so we can accept things. Staying in contact will only make it harder."
Tom fell silent, breathing audibly through his nose. Eyes still on the road, he nodded a fraction. "I know."
Sophie returned her forehead to the window.
They came off the roundabout and Tom took the exit marked 'Cottontree'. It was the village of her birth, and she was loath returning to it, but she had no place else to go. Her loopy sister was the only family she had left, and the sad old cow had never left the home they grew up in. Even now, Sophie could see the place hadn't changed at all—the same dreary, depressing place it had always been. They passed by the school she attended as a child and she closed her eyes in misery.
"It's nice," said Tom, staring at St Thomas's chapel on the corner of the single main road. "Can't believe I haven't been here before, all the years we've been married."
"I hate it here. Can't believe I'm back."
He sighed. "I said you didn't have to move out. We could've made something work."
Sophie moaned. Tom was awful at standing by his decisions, always so full of self-doubt. "Tom, I can't stand to look at you."
"Wow, thanks! What the hell did I do?"
She sighed and pulled her head away from the window again. "No, I don't mean it like that. I mean, I can't take being guilty anymore. The way you make me feel... No more, okay? Let's just get this over with."
He fell silent again, glaring through the windscreen at the drizzle-soaked road. Eventually he muttered something, "I'm sorry, Soph."
She went back to looking out the window. "Me too."
Tom slowed down past the church, shifting his Mercedes into 2nd. "Where do I go from here?"
She pointed ahead, remembering the village like she'd left it yesterday instead of twenty years ago. "Take the next left over the bridge. It'll take you across the river. My mom's house is right after."
"You still call it your mom's house?"
"I suppose so. The past is hard to forget."
Tom nodded and took the turning towards the bridge. "It certainly is."
Gwen's hands trembled as they gripped the fuzzy pink steering wheel. Passing her test first time meant she knew how to drive, right? So why did it terrify her being out like this without an instructor? Having fought so long to be an adult, now she doubted she could be one. In fact, she wanted to jump beneath her duvet and surround herself with teddy bears.
"Hell yes, bitches!" Stacey hadn't shut up for the last two miles—or since she'd first learned to talk really—but she was now more excitable than ever. "This is so fucking cool, Gwen. We can go anywhere. Fuck Cottontree, and fuck the losers who live here." She clutched the thick, white-gold necklace with her name emblazoned on it and pressed it up against the passenger window. "Stacey Chatwin is out of here, bitches!"
"We can go somewhere with a cinema," Mia chirped from the back seat. As usual, she played nervously with her waist-length brown hair. Gwen loved her, but she needed to let her mom get her to a salon before they named her the Pakistani Rapunzel.
Time to grow up for all of us, she thought. Not just me.
"Let's start with a few laps around the block, guys. This is my first time out on my own."
"You're not on your own," said Stacey. "You're with us. And screw sticking to the village. Take the bridge, and let's get the fuck out of here. Let's go down the rugby club in town."
"It's up to Gwen," said Mia. "It's her car."
Stacey whirled in the front seat to glare at her. "Don't be such a pussy, Mia. You don't want to stay in Cottontree any more than I do. We can find some real men at the rugby club. Maybe one of them will take those reigns of yours and give you a nice hard ride before you get married off."
Mia tutted in frustration. "I've told you before, my parents don't want an arranged marriage for me."
"That's just what they say now because they can't find anyone to take you on. Maybe Gwen's brother will volunteer. He talked to you that one time, remember? I think you were blocking his way to the fridge."
Stacey said it in jest, but Gwen glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Mia blush and look away humiliated. Stacey's coarse mouth often got the better of their meeker friend. Such a bitch.
"Fine. I'll take us out of town," said Gwen. "Just keep quiet until I get my wits about me, okay, Stacey? You haven't even taken your first driving lesson yet, so you have no idea how scary this is, so stop being such a brat!"
Stacey put a hand on Gwen's thigh and squeezed. "Relax girl, you're doing great."
"I don't want to crash."
"You won't! I guaran-fucking-tee it."
"Come on, Brandon! Job's a good'un so let's get on to the next." His dad climbed into the truck before Brandon had even removed his work gloves. He was having trouble keeping pace with his old man. It was like he needed to be glued to him every second or get left behind.
"Just let me get my tools, dad."
"Hurry up, lad. We get this next job done, we can have a pint down the Archers before we knock off for the day. Work hard, play hard, that's the name of the game. It'll keep you out of that bloody hovel you call a bedroom, and get you mixing with normal blokes."
Brandon gathered the shovels but struggled to hold them all at once. He waddled along the path with them like an arthritic porcupine before awkwardly hoisting everything up into the truck's rear bed. The largest of the shovels hit the rear panel and bounced off onto the road. "Bugger it!"
"Come on, Bran! Stop pissing about."
"Sorry, dad!" He picked up the shovel and lobbed it in with the others. He was about to grab a strap and fasten everything down, but his dad sounded the horn and made him jump. "Okay, okay, I'm coming!"
By the time he leapt into the passenger seat, his dad had shifted into first and took off. "You really want that pint, huh, dad?"
"What you trying to say, lad? I'd just rather get this next job done in an hour and go the pub, than spend two hours on it and go home to your ma's cooking. You need to mix more."
Brandon rolled his eyes. "So, what is the next job?"
"Same as the one we just finished. Got to build a mound to stop the Gypos camping on the playing fields."
"Aren't they Travellers, not ‘Gypos’?"
His dad threw the truck around a corner and shrugged. "What's the difference?"
"I... don't know."
"Well, the village council has had enough of 'em messing the place up, so we get paid to shovel piles of mud at the roadside to keep their caravans off. Bryne's meeting us there with the digger. He was expecting us twenty minutes ago."
"Great!" Brandon hated his uncle Bryne. The guy was a pisshead and stunk of B.O. His favourite hobby was taking the micky out of everyone, and especially enjoyed it when Brandon was the target. A right wanker. Brandon thought about slashing his tyres sometimes, or slipping bleach in his pint and watching him clutch his throat in agony. Now that would be funny.
They sped towards Old Abbey Bridge and passed the playing fields next to the supermarket. Two cars were coming in the opposite direction, but his dad didn't decelerate for them—he who drives the white van has the right of way, he always said—and as the truck reached the bridge's narrow peak, a thud sounded from the rear bed.
Brandon's dad glared at him, his thick black eyebrows threatening to leap out and smother him. "You strap down the tools, lad?"
"No, you didn't give me ti—" There was another thud. His dad swore and stamped on the brake. It wasn't the smartest thing to do.
Brandon's jaw dropped as he watched two shovels and a rake fly out from behind the truck and launch across the bridge just as the other two vehicles were about to pass. It didn't seem possible.
