Archie slammed the door shut with a heavy thud and locked it with jangling keys. With fierce determination, he headed towards the cemetery gate, a stone's throw away. The sky, now a thick charcoal grey, perfectly mirrored his mood. The can in the fridge flashed into his mind like a devious intruder. He prayed to the empty air, give me strength; stop this torture. Fiends sought control of his musings and mutterings. Each second, a battle destined to be lost eventually. The silence that came with the drink sat like a dreamy promise. A promise that hid a sharp blade behind its back, ready to shove its icy metal straight into his heart. He headed to the black gate with a steely gaze and scrunched shoulders. It shrieked like a ghoul as he jerked it open.
Pausing briefly, he surveyed the graveyard - headstones as far as the horizon. Thousands upon thousands of lives lived with only inscriptions on a rock to bear witness to their once passionate existence. Archie shook his head, and a spasmodic scowl lifted his features like a nervous twitch. A group of mourners, clad in grey robes, caught his eye, huddled around an open grave. Despite being some distance away, their chanting drifted in the breeze. What weird cult might this be? What secret society worshipping death and all its mysteries? It was late, and, usually, the cemetery was his to lose himself in. Four hundred thousand rotting corpses filled its iron-ringed earth, each his to consider in contemplating the fate that awaits us all. He stared momentarily, straining to hear the sounds of the lamenting grievers, and found himself wandering in their direction. They were communing in a language unrecognised, perhaps Middle Eastern, perhaps not of this earth at all. Then in unison, they all turned and stared back at him. Did one have red eyes? Unnerved, he stumbled back and turned, hurrying in the opposite direction. That felt weird. The way they turned. He fixed his eyes on the path ahead, then allowed himself one tentative glance over his shoulder. The group had returned to their chanting. 'Fuck 'em,' he spat into the cool evening air.
'Woooosh!' A black streak whistled past his ear. 'Shit!' he hissed, hunching over like a beggar. Looking up, a crow, the size of an alley cat, sped away from him. Momentarily transfixed by its flapping flight, he watched it settle onto a thick branch that hung like a leper's arm halfway up an old tree. It sat there and looked intently at him like a stern, plumy judge, there to finally convict him of all his self-destructive crimes.
Staring back, he awaited its sentence. Nature, life, and the air in his lungs no longer wanted him. It felt like a curse. A few seconds passed, and finally, Archie snapped out of it, reprieved for now. Reason wrenched control of his mind. It's not staring at you, idiot, he thought. Why would a crow be bothering you?
With a shake of the head and a half-scowl, he resumed the walk of the dammed, down the main path that sliced its way through the burial ground like a hallowed observer. Curiosity, though, forced a glance back towards the old tree. It was still there. Thoughts peppered his mind. It is looking at me. Is it a ghost? It's my judgement. You're drunk. The last helped to snap his attention back to the present. With another shake of the head, he turned and planted his feet firmly along the path. Before long, following the usual route along its maze of crisscrossing walkways, the trail led him deep into the now tranquil cemetery.
A sudden sight ripped hold of Archie's attention amongst the myriad of memorials—a fresh grave for a 12-year-old girl. 'Christ,' he spluttered. Without thought, his hands clasped together and made a prayer for her deliverance. Morbid fascination gripped him as he shuffled onwards along the path like an unwanted vagrant. After a tap, tap, tap on his smartphone, her image appeared on the screen in a blink. She was tortured and murdered by her uncle. My god, horror upon horror. Jamming the phone into his pocket like a guilty secret, and with a bowed head, he continued the journey along the forever grey path. Inside, a rage grew that wanted to battle with the creator of this bloody, meaningless void of existence. He tramped along, looking for answers in the granite tombstones that filled the landscape. Each one whispered into his ear, Welcome to your fate; we look forward to greeting you in the damp worm-infested earth that is your true home.
'Not today,’ he growled back, snatching his attention onto the trail ahead as the grumbling road that cut through the cemetery approached. Cars passed blankly before him; their occupants were lost in dreams of better places. He waited for his chance and then darted across the road. Death was mere feet away in the shape of soulless metal and spewing petrol, billowing filth into the once clean air. Each one an arrogant ‘fuck you’ to the balance and harmony of nature's bloody orchestra.
He shook his head and flared his nostrils, then forced open the creaky iron gate that took him into the older part of death's chambers. More endless rows of burial places came into view, each holding stories from a bygone age. The beauty of the setting momentarily grabbed his attention. Even as shadows draped across the path like dark spectres, the mature cherry blossom trees that lined the route, filled his vision with their pinky-flushed foliage. The first spring flowers were also begging for attention, covering swaths of open ground in a lemon-yellow mantle.
In that brief pause, it lifted his spirit. All bleak deliberations lost their grip leaving him caught in a vision that lifted him out of his malaise and sang of boundless possibilities. A scene from a fairy tale, almost, despite the failing light. A flamingo canopy showered his sight with flowery cheerfulness. The sweet smell of fragrant petals filled his nostrils. Hope suddenly seemed close enough to touch, life no longer a torture rack that whipped his soul. He reached out as though wanting to caress the dizzying array of potentialities that danced around him.
Then the unforgiving menace of reality forced his sister's image across his inner eye. The spell shattered in an instant. How could she? How could she? He snarled and shifted his attention to the weatherworn headstones. Tens of thousands of reminders of life's ultimate tune. A mockery of all ambitions destined only to be fertiliser for the next ill-fated generation. He looked around with sagging eyelids and sighed, then trudged down the path. Was the smell of rotting flesh filling his nostril, or was it just earth, leaf and tree roots mesmerising his senses? The light failed fast as the sun sank into the west, and all brightness oozed away like honey being sucked back into the jar. Shadows teased his mind, each clump of impenetrable blackness. It fizzed his imagination into life. Ghosts and bogeymen were no longer foolish imaginings. Every twisted trunk and chiselled rock was a potential hiding place for any creature with foul intent. Archie already knew there were monsters in the world.
His head lurched from side to side as his walking quickened. A sudden 'Caw! Caw!' banged into his ears from a nearby grizzly oak. His eyes widened and fell on a murky form sitting like a black-eyed messenger on a low-hanging branch. The same crow that had flashed past his ear only a few moments ago – it couldn't be? Could it? It stared at him as though he stood guilty of a terrible crime. He turned and walked ever faster down the endless pathway, the exit still some minutes away, with 'Caw! Caw!' following like a tolling bell. 'Fuck you, crow,' he hissed. 'You don't scare me.'
Then out of thin air, or so it seemed, a lanky man dressed in grey and black appeared and bumped into him. Archie jumped back as though poked with a cattle prod. '—the hell!' he exclaimed, with arched eyebrows. The man jolted to a stop and turned towards him, his face shaded by a tall, tatty hat. He stood like a crooked, tousled twig, draped in a Victorian-style overcoat, with a sturdy walking stick at his side.
'Be true. Be brave,' he rasped at Archie with a voice as croaky as any smoking devotee, pointing his wooden, metal-tipped stick. Then a silence that sat like a bored housecat. 'Be true, be brave,' he rumbled again; his frame turned towards Archie though his eyes remained hidden beneath his hat's brim. Archie just caught the sight of a monocle scrunched over one eye as the last sparkle of daylight hit the glass and shot out a golden beam that rendered him blind momentarily. After standing for a pause that sent prickles up Archie's spine, the sallow man turned and walked away with a tap of his heels and a sharp turn of pace.
'What?' Archie snorted. 'Be true? Be brave?' He stood open-mouthed and furrow-browed, watching the gangly man scurry along the path his steps had just taken. And ever so faintly could be heard, 'Be true. Be brave,' following him like an echo.
Archie turned away with a gulp. The cemetery was throwing up too much weird stuff. His head felt ready to explode. He turned back with eyes scrunched together, prepared to catch up with the man and confront him. Grab him by his collar and bellow into his ear: What do you want from me? But he'd vanished. Archie twisted and turned. Where on earth was he? His eyes jerked from side to side, but he could see no sign of him.
'You can't just disappear?' he muttered into the empty stillness. 'Right,' he rasped at a nearby tree, then, with a firm stride, headed towards the nearest exit a few minutes walk away. 'Screw this place,' he murmured with a shaky voice. His pace quickened, barely still a walk. The cemetery asked too many questions that his logical mind couldn't answer. The darkness of his mood, which had sung such a bitter refrain, now sang with fiery adrenaline thrashing through his muscles.
Escape, escape, his inner will niggled in the depths of his brain. Run for your worthless life. He marched ever faster but refused to give in to wild fear. He would be fine in the safety of his flat soon enough, and then all would be well, hidden behind indomitable brick and thick glass. It was dark now, though, really dark. How had it become so dark? Shades jumped about treetops and leapt across the pathway as the last light of the day gave them the appearance of lurking claws and contorted apparitions. An icy chill flushed through his veins. 'Where's that damned exit,' he barked into the godless gloom.
A loud 'Caw! Caw!' squawked into the air just above his head. The sound broke his nerve. It was time for fists or fleet of foot. He looked for stones in the gravel close to his feet to launch at the crow. It was too dark, though. 'Damn it!'
He started half-running down the murky wayfare. His neck hairs were bristling. Something was hideously wrong, though what that was felt utterly beyond him. As he turned down the path, he entered the part of the trail he never enjoyed, even in daylight. The trees on both sides were vast and imposing, with branches like giant arms and skin like dragon hide. Bent and twisted as though afflicted with a curse. Even in summer, they struggled to produce leaves. They seemed to be leaning in, ready to grab him. Head down, he pressed on. The exit was close; he'd be safe soon.
'What in god's name was that?' He'd heard a whisper. Was it the wind? He stopped and looked around. There'd been a voice, only a faint murmur, but definitely a voice. The wind, it must be the wind, he told himself.
Onward he went, only this time, he was sprinting. All control had left him. The vocal sound was getting louder. A pitch-black shape loomed on a nearby branch. He knew it was the crow. He knew it was here for him. Terror pumped through his veins. Run, run, run, the beast in him screamed. He lost his bearings in the twilight and slipped on loose soil lining the path. It sent him careering into the dirt, whacking his head into the roots of one of the immovable oaks. For a moment, he was stunned. He forced himself to his feet.
'Jesus!' he hissed into the cold air. He frantically rubbed the muck off his crumpled clothes. Voices were all around him; his head swirled like a merry-go-round. 'Caw! Caw!' filled the air. He stumbled forward, blood seeping from the wound on his forehead. He could start to make out the words. They were soft and soothing. Hypnotic even.
'I am the mighty stag striking his foes
I am the eagle flying high in the sky
I am the bluebell glistening in the sun.'
He yanked his head from side to side but could find no source for the spoken words.
He strained his ears to catch more of the verse, though his compulsion to escape clawed at his attention more. Whatever laws of nature usually permeated the universe had been thrown out and displaced with disembodied voices, vanishing pensioners and stalking crows. A man's voice rang in his ears, deep and foreboding like a gangster's warning.
'I who knows the secrets of the standing stones
Who knows the origins of the ages of the moon.'
Archie abruptly stopped and stared forward, eyes as wide as the moon. The air no more than ten feet away rippled and trembled like a disturbed pond. He stared, horrified but transfixed like a rabbit watching a weasel dance. 'What the fuck?' were the only words he spat out. His sense of the world was crashing into rubble. He touched his scalp and felt the warm stickiness of blood seeping through his hair.
'I must be…,' he murmured, gripping his head with both hands and stepping back from the distorted air. But then, a dreadful sensation pummelled through his body. He was being pulled. An unseen force gripped him like a monstrous meat hook. It dragged him towards the whirling air, whose form was transforming into an unearthly doorway, intent on hauling him into an unknown realm. The voice was becoming more manic, like a crazed priest of a devilish cult.
'I am the echoing voice in a dark valley
I am the edge of the sword ripping through flesh
I am the passion that burns forever within.'
What was this mesmerising melody? What mystery, what malevolent spirit, held him in its grasp? With all the force he could muster, Archie tried to fight. His face stretched into a scream with teeth bared. 'Aah!' he wailed into the night. With each stretched sinew and muscle, he fought and fought. Whatever had him, he would not go without a blood-pumping battle. 'Aah!' he yelled again as loud as his lungs allowed. Surely someone would hear him. 'Help me!' he bellowed, his eyes bulging.
Suddenly an object thumped into the back of his head with a loud screeching, 'Caw!' followed by another and another. That bloody crow! This time pecking viciously onto the side of his head. He fell forward and, in a flash, was sucked into the impossible entryway. Then as quickly as it appeared, it evaporated, and all that was left was the flailing crow and the stone silence of the cemetery.
Of Archie, all that could be seen were his bootprints in the gravel, which vanished in the gush of a phantom gust that blew for a second and then disappeared into nothingness. The crow glided away and faded into the blackness, and all was still, ghost still, as if nothing unusual or unexpected had just happened.
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