Horror showcase, p.10
Horror Showcase, page 10
“They say some people went out of there minds after visiting the blue room,” Boag-Munroe calmly noted, “shall we see what the blue room holds for us?”
The dragging sound stopped.
Boag-Munroe twisted the handle gently, the door creaked open. Utter darkness filtered out from the room in all its shapeless glory. A candle holder flew out from the black; it swished a mere inch past Boag-Munroe’s unflinching face and over Nigel’s ducking head. The candle holder bounced off the passage wall landing at Toby’s front paws.
Boag-Munroe looked down with distaste at Nigel sprawled out on his stomach. “It was no where near you. Honestly, I’ve never seen such dramatics.”
“If you want dramatics James look at that.”
Boag-Munroe turned round to face the message that had been scrawled on the wall in what looked like child’s crayon. It read, save your souls.
“Well Nigel, do you think our souls are worth saving?” Boag-Munroe smiled.
The only answer Nigel could give was the sound of his whole body trembling.
Toby entered the darkness of the blue room, his growling now sedated he searched and sniffed into every nook and cranny.
Boag-Munroe shrugged his shoulders dismissively, disappointed that he‘d found nothing of interest in the room. “Let’s check the kitchen out. Let’s see if this is Borley Rectory before the nuns window was boarded up or after.”
Boag-Munroe swept back down the corridor, his black leather jacket trailing behind him, making him look more like a giant bat, swooping down than a human being.
Nigel took another apprehensive look at the chilling message on the wall then gave chase.
*
Boag-Munroe pulled up a wooden chair and sat at the kitchen table.
“Well there’s our answer,” Boag-Munroe said.
“What answer?”
“The windows not boarded up,” Boag-Munroe leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table.
Toby put his front paws on the table, rearing up onto his hind legs. He looked like a werewolf.
Boag-Munroe tossed Toby a dog biscuit procured from one of his deep pockets.
“By rights, if we wait long enough, she should put in an appearance.”
“Who?” Nigel’s tongue was on auto pilot.
“The phantom nun of course.”
Nigel’s mind drifted back to an earlier thought. “Shouldn’t we start a fire before we freeze to death?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Fires and Borley Rectory don’t really mix.”
“Frostbite and I don’t mix that well either,” Nigel pulled up a seat and sat nervously by Boag-Munroe, “What’s going on here James?”
Boag-Munroe rocked back on his chair then sprang up suddenly to attention. “I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.”
Nigel moved to stand also. Boag-Munroe placed one hand on Nigel’s shoulder and with the other hand a finger to his lips.
“They know we’re here,” Boag-Munroe whispered, before throwing Toby another biscuit.
“Who knows we’re here?” Nigel was growing more frantic.
“Whoever is conducting the experiment.”
“You’re telling me that someone has reconstructed Borley Rectory as some kind of giant paranormal experiment?”
“Exactly,” Boag-Munroe agreed. “It’s not the first time I’ve come across something like this, and it probably won’t be the last.”
Toby stopped crunching on his biscuit. The sudden silence became highly noticeable.
The sound of giggling laughter drifted into earshot. Nigel felt every hair on his body stand on end.
“The blue room again I think,” announced an unruffled Boag-Munroe, “after you”, Boag-Munroe gestured for Nigel to lead the way.
“No, after you,” Nigel stuttered, “or maybe Toby would like to lead the way?”
Toby’s head tilted sideways.
Boag-Munroe smiled and led the way back to the blue room.
*
The words scrawled on the passage outside the blue room had changed. Now help me Marrianne was scrawled in place of the previous message.
Boag-Munroe acknowledged the new text. “Very interesting, classic Borley Rectory messages.”
“It just gets better and better,” hissed Nigel sarcastically through gritted teeth.
And it did, especially as the first explosion hit. They twirled back to see flames engulfing the stairway they had just come up. Boag-Munroe quickly snuffed out a piece of Toby’s fur that had caught fire.
“If I’m not mistaken, it seems whoever is running this experiment has decided it should now end, and go out with a bang at that,” Boag-Munroe shouted through the chaos.
Another explosion rocked the passage where they stood. The stairs now gone, the only other exit, a window at the other end of the passage, was now doused in flames.
“Petrol bombs I think,” Boag-Munroe said as calm as the proverbial cucumber.
“You think. How about thinking about what we do now that we’re trapped,” Nigel screamed.
Black billowing smoke drenched the passage in darkness.
“We’re going to die,” cried Nigel.
“We are if we stop here,” Boag-Munroe pressed forward but the flames from where the stairs had been beat him back. “It’s useless that way,” he sounded more like a driver who had just been annoyed by a road diversion, than a man about to die in a flaming pit of hell.
Toby let out a blood curdling howl.
“We’re totally trapped. We can’t get to the windows,” Nigel was gasping with smoke inhalation.
“So it would seem,” Boag-Munroe’s voice stayed as ice, even amongst the rising heat of the flames.
The fact that Boag-Munroe was pausing in thought made Nigel all the more frantic.
“We need to do something,” Nigel coughed.
“It all about waiting for the right moment,” Boag-Munroe calmly announced.
“We don’t have many more moments. We’re going to die James.”
“Panic,” Boag-Munroe snapped, “that’s what kills most people. Knee jerk reactions are the cause of many a death. Like I said, it’s all about waiting for the right moment.”
“Is the right moment going to come before we suffocate or burn to death?”
Nigel’s final line of sarcasm was duly answered. It was always the way in no win situations, sooner or later something had to give. Over come by fumes, beaten back by flames, all their exits cut off, something certainly did give. One minute Nigel was looking to his friend, the next the floor exploded in front of him and Boag-Munroe fell through it into a fiery pit of hell.
Seconds later Nigel and Toby joined him.
*
The only way to describe it was like falling from the flaming skies, into the pit of burning hell itself. Everywhere and everything around Nigel was bathed in red. Boag-Munroe stood up like a red demon amongst the flames.
“Our lucks in Nigel, we’re alive,” Boag-Munroe said.
“For how long,” Nigel coughed with what he thought might be one of his final splutters of breath.
“The floor gave in,” he dragged Nigel to his feet.
“I noticed.”
“At least the smoke isn’t as bad down here. The winds rising it up, it should give us valuable seconds,” Boag-Munroe coughed.
Toby shook his fur free of ceiling debris and licked Nigel’s hand.
Nigel found that his legs we’re less willing to work than his mouth. He slumped to the floor feeling the smoke overcoming him and dousing him with unconsciousness.
“Stay awake,” Boag-Munroe shook Nigel back to consciousness.
“Have I missed something?” Nigel reacted dazed.
“A way out,” Boag-Munroe snapped.
Another piece of ceiling fell down narrowly missing the trio. Nigel noted that in front of the window was a wall of flames where the curtains had hung.
“The kitchen, it’s the only way out,” Boag-Munroe grabbed the disoriented Nigel by the collar.
Now the smoke was coming thick and fast suffocating the life out of them. Behind the curtain of flames Nigel heard the window crack and finally smash, but there was no hope of getting to it, never mind through it.
They stumbled into the kitchen, drowning in the smoke. The whole of the kitchen ceiling was a mass of flames. The only hope of exit was the nun’s window, but to get to that would mean running the ultimate flame gauntlet. It wasn’t just the ceiling on fire now, but the walls themselves. Trees of fire were sprouting up all over from the floor.
Nigel felt the blackness of unconsciousness beginning to overcome him once more. Perhaps it would be better that way, no terror, no pain, just the oblivion of a never ending smoke filled sleep.
For what may well have been the final time, Boag-Munroe plucked the drowning man up from the waves of smoke.
A chair crashed through the nun’s window. Nigel felt himself being bundled through and falling back into the cold night’s snow. His eyes half open, he watched Boag-Munroe drag his now unconscious Alsatian companion, up and out of the window. The dog fell the short distance with a thud into the snow, which doused the little patches of flames that sparked in the dog’s fur.
Finally an exhausted Boag-Munroe scrambled up, about to make his escape through the window before he stumbled, the smoke finally overcoming him.
Nigel felt helpless and was helpless as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
The last thing he saw before he totally blacked out was Boag-Munroe stumbling at the finally hurdle once more, and falling from view as the whole of the kitchen ceiling caved in one of the brightest and most vicious explosions Nigel had ever seen.
*
Blue snow. The first thought that filtered into Nigel’s blurred mind was that he was lying in blue snow. The follow on thought to this was what the hell was he doing sleeping in any kind of snow, never mind the colour?
The whole of the previous events came flooding back, jamming into his skull, rewarding him with a crushing headache as he sat up. The body of Boag-Munroe lay face down in that very serene blue snow that was lit that way because of the nights sky.
Instead of being trapped Boag-Munroe must have been thrown out from the house somehow with the last explosion, Nigel thought.
The slightly singed, but otherwise unharmed Toby stood guarding his master’s body.
Nigel crawled to the body of his fallen friend. Toby stepped back.
Boag-Munroe was face down in the snow.
And he wasn’t moving.
Nigel placed a hand on Boag-Munroe’s shoulder. “James are you …..?”
“All right?” Boag-Munroe turned over in the snow, now lying face up instead of face down. “No of course I’m not all right.” There followed a meaningful pause. “I think I’ve singed my leather jacket.”
Nigel collapsed down, his energy not even at five percent, but he still found the energy to laugh. “Do you think it will live?”
Boag-Munroe examined the flame ravaged leather arm, “probably not.”
“When we get out of here, we should give it a decent burial?” Nigel laughed
Boag-Munroe tried to stagger to his feet, but fell back down again. The flames we’re finally dying out on what was left of the reconstruction of Borley rectory.
The laughter had made Nigel light headed again. He felt himself trying to fight the blackout, knowing his friend was injured. Maybe their luck had finally run out.
“We’re going to die out here in the cold aren’t we James?”
“Flames from the house might keep us warm.”
“What flames? They’re nearly gone. Look it’s snowing, blue snow,” Nigel fell back. He could see Boag-Munroe had found unconsciousness and Nigel the ever faithful friend, followed him there.
The blizzard that had died down from earlier began to whip up again. Soon they lay like highly detailed snowman, as the moonlit snow buried their bodies almost completely.
*
Was this death? Nigel felt himself floating high above the flames of Borley rectory recreated. He looked down for his friend but he was lost amongst the endless snow. He twisted to his side to afford a better look, but something, an invisible hand or force pushed him higher and away from the scene. A million stars zoomed in and out of his head sending him reeling with motion sickness as he rose to the heavens.
Were you supposed to feel motion sickness when you were dead?
The motion, sickness stopped and he found himself hanging high above the very earth itself.
So what do I do out here, he thought, and as he thought an increasing panic began to set in. The panic was akin to cement being poured into his body, replacing his blood, skin, his bones.
He found himself becoming heavy, like a giant stone he felt himself dragged down with his own dead weight, screaming towards the earth.
*
“You’re alive then.”
Nigel’s eyes flickered open at the sound of Boag-Munroe’s voice.
“Where am I?”
“Guess. If you get it right it will assure me you’ve still got some of your faculties left. Heaven knows you’ve lost enough over the years.”
Nigel’s hazy vision became accustomed to a bed in a hospital passage.
“If you’d had stayed unconscious for a couple more hours you might have got a bed in a room. Hospital cut backs eh.”
“I must remember to go private in future.”
“By the way Toby’s fine. He’s sat at home in front of a warm fire. I know its still early days but I don’t think my jackets going to make it.”
Boag-Munroe threw his burnt leather jacket down onto Nigel’s bed.
“Are you still going on about the bloody jacket?”
“You don’t seem to realise I’ve only got another four exact copies of it at home,” Boag-Munroe smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“As if my brain was made of sugar and it’s sifting through somebody’s fingers.”
“Who’s fingers?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
A cleaner made her way haphazardly cleaning splashes of blood up along the corridor. Boag-Munroe and Nigel’s conversation halted as the cleaner shuffled past, coughing out smoky breath in all directions. They waited in silence till she past out of view, leaving a smeared trail of soap suds and diluted blood on the partially cleaned corridor.
“It was a lucky escape for all of us,” Boag-Munroe stroked his chin.
Nigel dragged himself up from the makeshift hospital bed and propped himself up on his elbows. “You seem fine at any rate. One can’t help but note it’s only me that’s been hospitalised and there’s not even a graze on you, apart from your fashion slightly dented.”
“Hey, what can I say,” Boag-Munroe let out a world weary sigh. “That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”
“How did we get here?”
“Like I said, a lucky escape.”
“We must have broke some record for lucky escapes in one night.”
“Or unlucky breaks for getting into them into the first place, take it as you will, I know you normally look at things on the dark side.”
“Me on the dark side?” Nigel coughed.
“Take it easy. You need rest.”
“How did we get here?”
“Another of life’s mysteries I’m afraid. Apparently we were found near the cat and fiddle after a phone tip off.”
“But we were nowhere near the cat and fiddle.”
“You know that, I know that, but if you want to voice a different opinion who do you think will listen, or believe you for that matter? If you not careful they’ll be keeping you in for mental observation, instead of just observation.”
“But the house, the rectory?”
“Forget it,” Boag-Munroe snapped, before whispering, “for now.”
Nigel’s hand shot out from the covers and grabbed Boag-Munro’s arm. “I need to know now; drop the mystery act, too much weird shit has happened already, I need to know.”
“There’s not a lot to know at the moment.”
“For starters how did you know that place was there, who built it and who blew it up with us in it?”
“I told you I dreamt about it.”
“Don’t give me the dream crap, that a poor excuse that you give people when you want to avoid giving the real answer.”
“You know me too well.”
“Too damn right.”
“I don’t know who was behind the recreation of Borley Rectory or who blew it up, but I do know one thing, this kind of thing has happened before.”
“We’re in danger aren’t we.”
“The whole worlds in danger.”
“And you’re the only one that can save it”, Nigel said mockingly.
Boag-Munroe paused, his face deadly serious, then nodded. “I guess so.”
Beg the other Man by Ian Woodhead
She couldn’t keep her eyes off his holdall. Edwin Calhoun coughed, rubbed his damp hand across his stubbled chin and attempted to smile at the pretty shop assistant but the best he could manage was a sneer.
While she counted out his money, he looked at the bag secured between his feet, checking for the thousandth time that it was still fastened. Oh Christ, he was going to have to get a grip on himself; she didn’t know what was inside, how could she? It wasn’t as if she had x-ray eyes.
She was just nervous because of how he was acting. Edwin took a deep breath, tried to imagine what she would look like naked, her slender hands sliding down her young, pale skin. No, he couldn’t do it. The girl was just too thin for his taste. Edwin would never attain any level of relaxed state until he was out of this fucking city.
He grabbed his bottle and change and tried not to run out of the shop. Edwin didn’t look back for fear that she would be staring at him. Would the woman remember what he looked like? He doubted it, the shop was packed when he entered and he guessed that it stayed like that throughout most of the day. No, he would be just another nameless face, one of hundreds she would have served today.
Oh God, who was he kidding? How could she not remember a shifty looking bloke of dark skin, well over six feet tall and built like the back of a truck?
Edwin ambled over to a metal framed bench; he made a concerted effort to act casual, to blend in with the crowd so the nosy bastards watching the security monitors wouldn’t pick him out.
