A Cry From Beyond (35 page)

“You
sound kind of strange.”

I didn’t
answer, couldn’t answer.

“Has
something happened? Something has happened hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I
said, reluctantly. “But I can’t explain over the phone. Can we
meet?”

“Is this
some kind of ruse?”

“It’s no
ruse,” I said.

“Just
tell me what’s happened, John.”

“I can’t.
I haven’t got time. Besides, I don’t think you’d believe me
anyway.”

“Try
me.”

“All I’ll
say is this: I know who Melinda is.”

“Like you
didn’t really know before?”

“I not
only know who Melinda is,” I said ignoring her, “I also know what
Melinda is. And she’s key to what’s been going on here.”

“You’re
starting to freak me, John.”

“
She lived at High Bank a long time ago,” I said, “and then she
went away.” Went away! What the hell was I saying! She was murdered
for Christ’s sake! But how on earth could I tell Michelle that? The
simple fact was, I couldn’t. So I decided to quit while I was ahead
and that was probably for the best. Michelle already saw me as
selfish and unreliable. I didn’t want her to think I was delusional
too.

“Let me
call you at a better time,” I suggested.

“It’s a
little bit late to play the considerate card,” she
complained.

And then
she hung up the phone, just like that, without giving me the
opportunity to redeem myself.

I slumped
down onto an armchair, feeling utterly disillusioned. I shut my
eyes and slowly drifted away. When I woke some twenty minutes
later, I knew what I had to do. Funny that, how things suddenly
come together, how they click for no apparent reason. Of course,
that wasn’t strictly true, there were reasons why I came to the
conclusion I did that night, there were the energising ley lines
for a start, and my theory that underground tunnels followed them,
interconnecting with one another, with High Bank Cottage at their
epicentre. High Bank, I reasoned, had originally been some kind of
head quarters, cum safe house, for Grimshaw and his acolytes.
Later, Martin Willis had discovered the secret. Now it was my turn,
but whereas Grimshaw and Willis wished to protect the labyrinth and
all that it stood for, I on the other hand wanted its ultimate
destruction. The place was evil and so long as it existed, bad
things were going to happen to good people.

With that
thought weighing heavily on my mind, I retired straight to bed,
where I slept, failing to wake until lunchtime the following day. I
slept extremely well, which I initially thought surprising under
the circumstances. Then again, I’d been through a lot. I guess my
mind and body were in need of a complete shutdown.

That
afternoon, following a belated breakfast of toast and black coffee,
I travelled into Shrewsbury, the nearest major town to Ashley,
where I visited a DIY store and purchased a heavy duty flashlight,
a pair of protective goggles, and a hefty sledgehammer.

Then I
made a phone call to Irish, getting straight to the
point.

“Irish,
it’s me, John: I need a gun and some ammo: can you help
me?”

There was
a long drawn out pause, and then: “Should I be askin’ what you want
such a ting for?”

“What
doesn’t speak doesn’t lie,” I said. “Again, I’ll ask the question:
can you help me?”

Another
lengthy pause before, finally: “Yeah, sure. How quickly do you need
it?”

“Tonight,
I need it tonight.”

“Jeez...”

“I’m a
man in a hurry, Irish.”

“It’ll
cost yer...”

“How
much?”

Irish
named his price.

I didn’t
have to think about it. Being armed was essential if I was to
accomplish all that I intended. “Payment isn’t a problem,” I told
the big man.

He
grunted. “Give me an hour or so. I’ll bring it over to
you.”

I
cancelled the call and quickly thought through my plan of action.
If my theory was correct, I was about to take my life in my hands,
but it was the only option l had if I was to rid High Bank of the
evil infesting it.

Before
leaving town bound for the cottage I found a cash machine and made
a withdrawal in the assumption that Irish would expect cash payment
on delivery.

It was
early evening by the time I arrived back at High Bank, where I
proceeded to wait patiently for Irish to turn up. He proved to be
as good as his word, arriving within the hour, just as he said he
would.

“Thanks
for helping me out,” I said, as we entered the kitchen.

“
Don’t thank me,” he said, glowering, “just pay me.” With that
he pushed a brown paper bag into my hand. Inside it was a Smith and
Wesson .38. The gun was a small compact affair. I studied it, as if
it was poisonous.

“Don’t
worry, it don’t bite,” Irish sneered, sensing my
discomfort.

“Is it
easy to use?”

“An ejeet
could operate the ting.” He took the gun from me and quickly
explained how to load and fire it.

“Thanks,”
I said when he had finished. I then handed him a wad of cash as
payment, which he took and counted before depositing in his coat
pocket.

“I’ll
leave you to it,” he said. He left the kitchen and entered the
hall. At the front door he turned to me and nodded to the gun,
which I held in my right hand, the barrel safely aimed at the
floor.

“Good
hunting,” he said as he left.

Once he
was gone, I grabbed my DIY purchases and made my way down into the
cellar, where I mentally prepared myself for the task ahead. The
cops had been heading in the right direction when they considered
excavating down here. Guess I was going to beat them to it. You
see, following my trip into the tunnel, I’d deduced that the
immovable door, immovable to mortals, that is, led directly to High
Bank. If my theory proved correct, the tunnel in question would
have originally merged with this cellar. At some stage in the past,
access to that tunnel had been walled off, maybe as a safeguard.
Who knows? All I knew was, whatever it was that cursed High Bank,
was now in residence on the other side of that wall. The thought
scared the hell out of me. So why on earth would I put myself in
peril’s way? Well, I guess I felt I had a duty to help those Madam
Lee referred to as “the lost ones”, and I had to know once and for
all how exactly Johnny O’Shea fitted into all of this. Only then
would I be able to move on with my life.

Once
again I recalled that as a young child, following the fateful
holiday at High Bank, I suffered terrible nightmares, which had
dogged me into adulthood. Night terrors, my mother called them. Now
that I came to think of it perhaps that was where the booze and the
drugs came into the picture; maybe they’d provided a way for me to
exorcise those “horror visions”, as I preferred to think of them,
from my mind. The idea that I chose to endure the hell of
chemically induced hallucinations to those produced naturally,
demonstrated just how bad those experiences were. As for Melinda
and Kayla reconnecting with me after such a long interlude; it
seemed reasonable to suggest that my near death experience had
played a big part in reawakening my childhood psychic abilities,
thereby allowing Melinda and Kayla to revisit my
consciousness.

But
enough conjecture...

I was in
the cellar, the bowels of the cottage, as I’d begun to think of it,
intent on demolishing a solid brick wall that I was convinced would
reveal the reason for all the craziness that’d happened since my
arrival at High Bank.

I donned
the protective goggles, raised the sledgehammer and took careful
aim. Then, as hard as I could, I attacked the brickwork. Sparks
flew and splinters of brick exploded from the impact. The sound of
metal against brick echoed like gunshots in the confined space,
causing my ears to ring. The result of my labours however, was
disappointing. It was going to take more than a few hopeful hits to
crack the wall and reveal what lay beyond.

I pressed
on regardless, until my muscles cramped and my back started to
ache. The reverberations of metal striking brick made my head
throb. Dust dried my throat. After a while I rested, momentarily
defeated, and sat glaring at the sledgehammer as if it’d somehow
failed me. Sturdy and effective though it was, it had more than met
its match. By now I was stripped down to my shirt and perspired
freely, despite the room’s low temperature. I had also built up a
tremendous thirst, which I quenched with water from the kitchen.
Refreshed, I set about the task with renewed vigour, reigning
repeated blows against the stubborn wall until finally and with
unexpected suddenness, the first few bricks were dislodged, hitting
the floor with muffled thuds. Retrieving the torch from my coat
pocket, I shone it expectantly through the hole created by my
endeavours, only to have my hopes of success dashed
further.

A second,
older wall lay beyond, which I surmised to be the original. At a
certain point in time it’d been partially demolished and then
rebuilt. The purpose of the outer skin was to conceal the fact.
With dogged determination, I continued with the task at hand, until
once again I was forced to rest. Taking up the sledgehammer for a
third time, I drove it repeatedly into the brickwork.

Just when
I ‘d almost given up all hope of ever breaking through, my efforts
were rewarded as a section comprising of maybe twenty bricks
suddenly crashed inwards. The sound was deafening in the confined
space. Dust rose in a thick billowing cloud. What at first appeared
to be a narrow annex was revealed. I strained to see in. The space
beyond was dark, vacuous and dust filled. It appeared to be empty.
My initial disappointment was tempered however, by a strong belief
that here lay the truth, that finally after so long, the nightmare
was about to end. Despite the increasing danger High Bank
presented, I refused to allow myself to be intimidated.

Yet the
torch wavered noticeably in my hand as I directed its beam into the
concealing dark. The light was good for perhaps fifteen feet before
it lost its effectiveness. Here goes, I thought, here is the moment
I discover High Bank’s terrible secret. I pushed against the
fractured brickwork, managing to dislodge a few more bricks. They
fell to the ground on the other side with resounding thuds. The air
in the tunnel was stale, which was to be expected.

Accompanying the stale air however, was the strangely
familiar scent I’d detected earlier, just after David was taken. In
a flash I realised why it had the effect on me it did: aftershave:
it was an aftershave of a type favoured by my father.

Which
meant...what exactly?

That he
was here, with me right now, in this tunnel?

It was of
course pure insanity to even think such a thought. How on earth
could he be here? No one in their right mind would willingly
descend into a hell hole such as this. And how could he have
survived? Surely he would be dead by now anyway. He’d been sick,
really sick; with cancer, the doctors had given up all hope for him
by the time he vanished.

But that
scent, it promised so much...

Dead, he
was dead, I told myself over and over. Whatever resided here had
nothing to do with him. I retrieved the gun from the bottom of the
cellar steps, turned to face the tunnel entrance and suddenly
froze, unable to believe what I was hearing. A voice, as familiar
as the scent lingering in the fetid air, beckoned to me from within
the tunnel. I found it impossible to speak, impossible to move. All
I could do was to stand there, holding the gun,
wondering...

My
father, the voice belonged to my father; but how could it? Then
again, stranger things have happened, I mused as I tried to
rationalise the situation. What if his mind had snapped and he’d
sought refuge here at High Bank and used the tunnel as a safe
haven? But if it was him, did that also mean he was the one
responsible for the disappearances, past and present?

I cleared
my throat and called out the words: “Who’s there? What do you
want?!”

I waited
expectantly, but failed to receive a response.

Had I
imagined it all? Only one way to find out: enter the
tunnel...

And it if
proved to be a trap: what then? I already knew and accepted that
this would prove to be a dangerous exercise. And it wasn’t as if I
was defenceless: protection came in the form of the gun. And let’s
not forget the flashlight. Whatever it was that had taken “the lost
ones”, appeared to operate under cover of darkness.

My mind
made up, I set about easing myself through the hole, whilst
employing the torch to gain a better understanding of my
surroundings. A relatively large tunnel stretched far ahead, into
dark oblivion it seemed. I trained the torch directly in front of
me.

And
suddenly glimpsed movement; the outline of a figure...of human
proportions, though not of human kind. I narrowed my eyes,
straining to see more. The thing, whatever it was, moved
again...crablike. It skulked around in a manner suggesting it
shunned light. I felt momentarily reassured.