Tag Archives: darkness

Blackpool Bay, General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction

The Benjamin Tree

“Oh, the tree comes with the apartment,” the Estate Agent mentioned waving at it as they moved through the lounge area, “The previous owner considers it part of 307’s furnishings.”

The tree was small–head-height–and had a trunk that was made up of what looked like thick, gray, twirling vines that held a clump of large, bright-green, oblong leaves. It sat in a knee-high pot decorated with intricate carvings and strange oriental-looking letters cut finely into it.

“It’s called a Benjamin Tree,” he said, “It’s the official tree of Bangkok, actually.”

“Oh,” the Estate Agent paused in her sales pitch, “I thought it was a Weeping Fig?”

“Yes,” he nodded before moving on with her, “That’s another name for it. I prefer the former name. Say, why is the previous owner selling here? Ocean View seems so quaint.”

“Oh, he used to work at the docks. Import-export or something, I believe. He won the lottery last week so he is returning to his family in New York,” the Estate Agent said, “It’s a pity the money doesn’t ever stay in Blackpool Bay, really. We could use it here. Why are you moving all the way out here?”

The furnished apartment was not massive. They had walked through most of it and were standing back in the lounge by now. It had a window that overlooked the gray ocean with the dingy docks below. He could see a twitchy-looking man loading what looked like diving gear into a small fishing boat and he watched intently for a moment wondering what this man was doing.

“I’m a writer,” he muttered back and then turned and faced the Estate Agent, “I’m a writer and I need a place to disappear to and write. This one looks perfect. The Benajim Tree can stay.”

***

A year and a bit later, he was sipping his morning coffee and staring out of the lounge window. The local morning newspaper lay on his lap. The ocean in Blackpool Bay never changed; it was always gray and stormy with dark, distrusting waters under a brooding near-storm sky. It all just reflected this town’s forgotten place and constantly surprising secrets.

They had even tried to build a highway through the mountains to connect Blackpool Bay to civilization, but a worker had died under questionable circumstances and the funders had pulled out.

The writing had gone brilliantly and his new book had only just been published. He remained here, though, as he liked the solitude of the place. Although he considered himself a city person, something about Blackpool Bay made it hard to leave.

Perhaps born out curiosity or a little boredom, he had begun researching the previous owner. Talking to the neighbors he had found a full name and the Internet had provided the rest: born in New York, Nathan Midlane had moved out to Blackpool Bay for work and then won the lottery and moved back.

It was a simple story, but the newspaper in his lap told a darker ending than he would have expected. He would never have guessed that Nathan Midlane’s story was a tragedy but the newspaper loudly declared it: “Blackpool Bay Man Wins Lottery & Dies“.

It had happened a week ago but only been reported here this morning. Time moved differently out here in Blackpool Bay. The line in the story that surprised him was the opening line: “Another former-resident in Apartment 307, Ocean View, has met a tragic end…”

He found himself looking at the Benjamin Tree deep in thought. The spidery oriental writing on its pot looked faintly sinister. He wondered when Nathan Midlane had acquired the thing? He wondered from whom he had done so? He wondered what the strange language or symbols on its pot meant?

Just then his phone rang. He snapped out of it and finished his coffee. It was now cold but he gulped it down, stood up and walked across to his phone.

“Hello?” he answered, not looking at who was calling.

“How’s the writing?” his Agent’s familiar voice crackled on the other side of the line. It sounded really far away. The reception was not great out here in Blackpool Bay and it just added to this place’s isolation. Sometimes the phones all just went dead and no one knew why.

“Uh, it’s fine, I suppose,” he mumbled, unsure how to respond, “What else is up?”

“That’s not why I am calling,” his Agent started talking, the sheer excitement audible in his faint, crackling voice, “Some major blogger read your book. She wrote about it and tweeted. A bunch more picked up on this and did the same. It’s trending. Your book is trending. They love it. They all love it! Your book is now front shelf and ranked in top ten on Amazon. Go check it out! Rolling Stones want an interview and the BBC has asked for a quote…”

***

He put down the phone and leaned back on the couch in Apartment 307, Ocean View. Even the name had started sounding ominous to him. The twisted trunk of the Benjamin Tree in its sinister pot cover with spidery runes looked back at him. The ocean remained gray under the foreboding sky.

All the rest was silence. It was so quiet out here. It was like man and the entirety of his little civilization was just a brief flicker of light in a cosmic darkness that reached across time and space in crushing size and scope and, far out here, Blackpool Bay was surrounded by endless amounts of it…

While his book continued to reach highs out there in the world, he felt a million miles away from it. Perhaps he was a million miles away living out here in eerie Blackpool Bay.

But none of this consumed his thoughts these days. He had been investigating Apartment 307, Ocean View. He had been digging for the truth and it was far darker than he had ever imagined.

He had reached out to the journalist at the local paper. The journalist had sent him a number of other clippings going back some years.

A couple year ago, before Nathan Midlane had moved into Apartment 307, the previous owners–a certain, Miley and Marc Cohen–had died shortly after moving into a fancy house in Main Road here. Speaking to some locals down at the pub, the best he could piece together was that the Cohens had made a large amount of money from investments. Unfortunately, a strange fire in their new house in Main Road had seen them burnt to death. Strangely, most of the house had escaped unscathed.

Before the Cohen’s, though, a lesser known, Catherine McDougle, had lived a quiet, spinster life here for many decades. Little seemed to be known about her, except that she had died shortly after moving to live with family in Washington. She was old and the coroner had ruled her death natural, or so the article had claimed.

Upon her death, though, to the Blackpool Bay residents’ surprise, McDougle’s fortune had been donated to the Masonic Museum in London. It had been the largest public donation ever on record. The Museum had gone on record thanking her for it. Everyone was flabbergasted at the fortune McDougle had quietly amassed while living in the modest Apartment 307, Ocean View.

He could not find any older records of any earlier owners of Apartment 307, Ocean View. But what he did find in one of the earliest articles of McDougle was quite disturbing: “We will all fondly remember McDougle. My personal memory will always be her sitting in her favorite seat next to her special Weeping Fig tree and recounting her days in the Society abroad where she collected many such wonders…”

He had sat upright when he had read that. He found himself looking more and more at the inconspicuous Benjamin Tree and its sinister pot that quietly stood in the corner of his modest lounge.

***

“So you can interpret it then?” he asked, trying to sound calm, but instead a near-feverish eagerness came through in his voice, “Can you understand it then?”

An old, scholarly Chinese man was in Apartment 307, Ocean View, and looking at the Benjamin Tree. More specifically, the man was bending down and attempting to read the spidery runes cut finely into its pot.

“The writing is a version of Archaic Mandarin from the First or Second Imperial Dynasty. Yes, probably from the Han Dynasty. It is strangely phrased with ambiguity,” the scholar paused, chuckling to himself, “It is actually quite witty if I am correct.”

With that, the scholar stood up and turned to him. He felt his heart pounding and his palms sweaty. Within his clenched fists at his side, he dug his nails into his palms. It was all he could do to stay calm. Outside the gray, foreboding sky and its ominous clouds seemed to be holding their breath as they peered inside the gloomy Apartment 307.

“Could–could you please,” he took a deep breath and tried to continue calmly, “please tell me what you read?”

The scholar smiled and motioned at the pot and its twisted, green Benjamin Tree.

“Old Chinese folktales talk of a Money Tree,” the scholar began slowly, picking up the pace as he spoke, the tree and its pot just sat there listening, “Literally, a tree on which money grows. A woodcutter once tricked a village into cutting down a tree that he wanted. He did this by sticking money on it. But, once the tree had been cut down and taken back to the village, it had regrown, twisting its hacked stem back and pushing out its sickly green leaves. The woodcutter had been angry and had tried to cut down the tree but the villages–still believing the tree to magical–attacked and killed the woodcutter. The village was prosperous for years thereafter, until a stranger had stolen it in the night. Shortly after then, a plague had wiped out all the villagers. It is said that this Money Tree brought luck to those that had it and misfortune to those that lost it.”

The scholar finished his tale with a smile, seeming quite satisfied with himself.

“Yes,” he said abruptly, feeling anger and frustration rising inside himself, “But what does the writing say?”

The scholar nodded and pointed at the pot again, moving his finger as he read it out loud.

“I believe that this is an old Hang Dynasty artifact–probably worth a tidy sum of money!–but it seems to keep referencing the Money Tree folktale with a simple palindrome that repeats across the design here and here and over there too. It simply says: ‘Dead lucky or lucky dead‘.”

Far away, he could almost hear the noise of civilization and his book shooting up the rankings with the steady clink of money flowing in. And, trapped all the way out in Blackpool Bay that distant metallic sound just sounded like chains being tightened around him. One by one, inch by inch and moment by moment, he was suffocating in Apartment 307, Ocean View.

The Benjamin Tree in its sinister pot with spidery runes carried on standing there. It was taunting him, its prisoner, and just daring him to leave…

Blackpool Bay, Horror & Dark Fiction

Being in the Mist

“Hopefully he dies soon. We can’t delay the tunnel anymore and there is less paperwork with a death than a disability. The tunnel must happen.”

Edward Athelard was shocked at the speaker. He just stood in the hospital with his mouth open gawking at her. His Grandmother had taken over the family business after his Grandfather had disappeared. This was before he was born. He had never seen her shed a tear and he knew she could be cold, but this was severe.

“Come on, Edward, let’s go home. There is nothing we can do here,” she turned and walked away without looking back. He instinctively trotted after her, trying to think what to say.

***

The Athelard family–or what was left of them–owned a large, profitable fishing fleet in Blackpool Bay. Edward’s Great Grandfather had started the business with a single boat and his Grandmother had grown it into a small empire with his help while his brother sat as Mayor of the town. Their parents had both died when they were young, so this was all that they had. It was all that they knew.

The tunnel was going to connect the new, shiny highway through the Old Mountains. You need to know how old the Old Mountains were to be called ‘old’, but they predated pretty much everything and wrapped around Blackpool Bay, isolating it on the coast from the rest of civilization.

Both sides of the new highway had been built. It had been agonizingly slow work cutting through the Old Mountain. Some of the construction crew had started fighting and complaining about strange things, but, eventually, those that remained had completed everything but the tunnel. The final tunnel boring needed to be done through a particularly ragged peak in the middle of the range that would connect the two halves of the highway.

Without the tunnel, there was no highway. And, without the highway, Blackpool Bay’s economy–most fish exports and everything else imports–had to either go by ship to the nearest port or take the Old Road. The journey by ship was slow and expensive while the Old Road was an exceedingly long, single-lane nightmare to the nearest town. Neither were good options, but the highway would change this.

Grandmother was right, Edward thought reluctantly, Not about Jim dying, but about the tunnel being completed. He knew the construction engineer who was lying in the hospital on life-support. It was a small town and they had all grown up together. He felt terrible that Jim had come out of the half-finished tunnel hurt. He still did not understand how it had happened and nothing Jim had said since had made sense. But, he knew he needed to make sure that it did not happen again.

After dropping Grandmother off at their family home at 2 Main Road–she was as cold and silent as ever on the drive back–Edward turned the car around and decided to head out to the construction site himself. He wanted to know what happen or, at least, try to make sure it did not happen again.

***

It was late when Edward got to the tunnel entrance. All the construction warnings were proudly displayed there. A single guard was on duty to make sure that no one accidentally–or otherwise–wandered into the dangerous, gaping maw of this hole that was half-bored into the mountainside. He briefly wondered how the Old Mountain must be feeling about this, but then dismissed the thought and put on his safety gear.

He nodded at the guard at the entrance, Joey. He had been to his wedding some years back. If he remembered correctly, Joey had a kid on the way soon.

“Ah, Mr Athelard, are you sure–” Joey started, but Edward dismissed him.

“Don’t worry, Joey, I’m just going to check it out. I’ll be careful.”

“No, it’s not that, Mr Athelard,” Joey stumbled a bit over the words, looking sheepish, “It’s just that something feels wrong about things in there. Just, ah, yes, be careful.” He finished lamely.

Edward smiled and nodded, patting Joey on the shoulder as he passed him and entered the tunnel.

The atmosphere changed almost the moment he was inside the tunnel. The distant sound of the ocean fell away and he felt surrounded by a thick, old darkness. The air was damp and his heart began to beat faster.

He clicked on his headlamp and his hand-held flashlight. Their light did not pierce the darkness very far, but he could see that the walls were wet and there was a faint mist in the tunnel. The mist seemed to get thicker deeper in the tunnel. He shivered slightly, it was cold in here.

He took a deep breath and began to walk deeper into the tunnel.

***

Deep inside the tunnel, the mist was so thick that he could not see both sides at once. The mist seemed to seep out of the very rocks themselves, smothering and consuming everything around it. It even felt like it had a weight, pressing down on him.

He had reached the idle boring machine and the rock face where Jim’s accident had apparently happened. But there was nothing here? It all looked fine as far as he could see. Though, with the mist, he could not see very far.

What was that?

He was sure he had heard someone say something. He swung around and looked, but with the mist he could not be sure. He could not see much beyond a few feet in front of him. He stepped forward and suddenly he could not see either side of the tunnel, nor, in fact, the rock face and idle boring machine. He could be anywhere in this mist. He felt a lump growing in his throat and a primal urge to abandon everything and flee this nightmare.

There! There it was again! What was that?

Now he was sure he had heard something. It sounded so near to him, but he could not make out what it was. It was definitely a voice or something resembling one.

“Hello?” he called out into the mist, “Hello, who is there?” It definitely felt like something was there. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling.

The mist was getting thicker. He was sure of it. He reached out and he could not find the side of the tunnel. Had it not just been there a moment ago? He wondered if he was still in the tunnel? He suddenly realized that he was struggling to breathe. The mist fell malevolent and brooding, like a predator stalking its prey as he dropped to his knees, gasping for breath, his limbs getting shaky and his heart pounding in his chest.

And then he heard it clearly. It whispering in his ear, or was it directly in his mind? He understood it. He understood the desire. He felt the hunger. Its old, cold claws reached out and touched him, running down his spine and chilling his very blood. He felt his humanity draining out of him. He felt himself growing colder, but he could not move. He was powerless as the mist swirled around him and his eyes slid closed. He was not sure if he was dying or not? He was not sure if he cared or not, anymore.

He now knew what had to be done.

***

“Ah, Mr Athelard, are you OK?” Joey started as Edward suddenly stepped from the dark tunnel entrance, “You were gone quite a while?”

He looked coldly at his employee and nodded.

“Yes, I am fine,” he said, as he strode right past him. He had somewhere he needed to be.

A little over twenty minutes later, he stepped from his car into the hospital parking lot. It was empty, but that was not strange. It was well past midnight by now and this was a small town.

He walked straight into the hospital. There was a receptionist at the front desk, but she was fast asleep. He walked by her and down the passage to the ICU. There were no guards posted there or even a single soul that was not either dying or fast asleep.

In that hospital at midnight, he felt as alone as he had felt in the mist. It felt exactly like he was in the mist. Had he even left the mist, he wondered? Had he even left the tunnel? He dismissed such fanciful thoughts. He had a job to do.

He stood over Jim’s unconscious form lying quietly in the hospital bed. The life-support system quietly beeped away, its lights blinking on and off. Its machines pushed blood through his veins and inflated and deflated his lungs with the monotonous rhythm of life.

He reached out and touched Jim. His skin was cold and wet. It felt like the mist. He now understood. The mist had touched him too, but not in the same way.

He reached out and turned off the alarms. He and Jim had gone to school together. They had both dated the same girl but in different grades. He turned and pulled the life-support’s plug out from the wall. He watched the flashing monitor go dead, all the light go off and everything fall silent. He had dated the girl first, but he could not remember her name anymore.

Jim’s body spasmed a couple of times and then it fell still.

Edward Athelard did not smile. Nor did he cry. In fact, he barely acknowledged what had just happened, other than to bend down and whisper in Jim’s unhearing ear:

“The tunnel must happen, Jim. It must happen, and you know why. It touched you too.”

Fantasy, General Fiction, Romance

Long Road

The old car did not have a radio in it. Its growling engine was so loud that he was not sure he would have been able to hear any music anyway. Instead, he leaned back in his cracking leather chair and watched the world slide by, tree after tree.

Outside the wilderness stretched for miles. Rugged mountains poked through endless pine trees broken only by the weathered, old road he was following. Mist swirled through the air pierced only occasionally by the Sun and endless sky far above.

He felt like a voyeur, peering at one of Mother Natures’s untouched places. Despite the growling car engine and the crunch of its tyres on the old, weathered road, he felt like he had to be quiet. If he spoke, he might break the spell.

Soft mist slept in the valleys serrated by rolling, rugged pines. He would disappear into these gullies as the road dipped down. It was like he briefly disappeared into another world where sight ended, closed by the sudden thick mist around him. Even the sound of the vehicle was dampened down there. But then the road rose from the valley and he would break out of the mist into the cold, crisp morning.

This would go on again and again as he drove along miles and miles of that old road.

Eventually, he came to a fork in the road. No other cars and not a living soul had crossed his path for hundreds–perhaps thousands–of miles out here. So he brought the car to a growling stop in the middle of the road. He let it idle while he decided what direction to drive.

He thought of what existed a world away from this mystical wilderness. He thought of the beings that he loved and that had loved him. He remembered the wooden, slightly run-down cabin he had grown up in and how his mother smelt. He remembered the pine trees and the cold winter months. He remembered the girl that lived in the big city he had studied at. He remembered the final time he had seen his parents. He thought of all his demons and the evil that lurked in all men’s hearts. He thought of the loneliness of one soul and the warmth of friendship. He thought of loyalty and loss. He thought of the beauty of peace and the nastiness that drove the world forward.

He had no answers, only thoughts. But, just perhaps, that was alright all the way out here. Perhaps that was the answer.

Far above, the Sun slipped over its zenith and slid towards the jagged horizon, criss-crossed with mountains and pine trees. He barely noticed time passing. The air still felt cool and wet. A pine and dirt smell permeated this air, and the fragrance only intensified as a soft, scotch mist began to fall as the afternoon stretched out.

But still, he sat at the crossroad deciding which path to take.

Did it matter which path he chose? Would the world change at all? Would his loss ever ease? Where were the wolves? Where was the wild? Where was his friend?

Eventually, his grip on the steering wheel tightened, he put the car in gear and pulled off. He was going down the path that he was always going to be going down. He was always going to choose this path. It was the old familiar path, but he had never driven it for this reason before.

It was late at night by the time he reached the old, run-down log cabin. Far above, unpolluted by city lights and human noise, the jewel-encrusted cosmos displayed itself. Swirling, endless galaxies and stars twinkling dramatically in their silence as they gazed down on this small, insignificant world.

They were the silent witnesses as Mother Nature was the stage.

He turned the car’s engine off and it stuttered and ground to silence. The door creaked open and he stepped out, crunching the gravel ground below his boot.

“I am going to miss you.”

It was the first words he had said all day. Or forever? Definitely for hundreds of miles. Time moved differently out here, or through the fog of his thoughts. The words seemed to echo in his ears, but it may not have been the sound that echoed, but the memories.

“I am going to miss you,” he said again, embracing his voice as he walked around the back of the car and popped the boot, “But I cannot go where you are going now.”

In the car’s boot was a shovel and an old, blue blanket covering something. The something looked like a curled up, unmoving form. It was dead still. It was small enough to be a child, or a best friend. He reached down and gently pulled the blanket back, revealing the body of an old sheepdog.

“I am going to miss you, my old friend,” he said, tears coming to his eyes as he bent into the boot to gently scoop the body of his old pet out, “But, at least, out here you will have lots of space to run around in. You remember this place? There is so much space, so much more than our little house in the noisy city. There are wolves and there is wilderness for you, my friend. Wolves and wilderness…”

And, far above, the cosmos and its countless stars and galaxies silently peered down. Tears streamed down his face, as he buried his childhood dog behind his childhood home at the end of the long road.