Pinprick (17 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve seen the unhealthy, diseased crops haven’t you? It’s the reason why there’s so little farmland left around this end of the village. Then there’s the bad weather, too cold, too hot, flooding, drought. Strange abnormalities in livestock, high number of still births, again disease; foot and mouth.”

He thought about the freak show exhibits.

“Even birth defects in some of the children,” Morgan said softly, “your nieces for example.”

Shane was horrified at Morgan’s implications. Was he actually responsible for his niece’s birth deformity? He remembered the photo they put in the newspaper of them before and after they were separated, bumping hips. It could’ve been worse and at least the operation was successful.

“Of course, with Jennifer and Angela, the deformity wasn’t just physical. Mental health issues are so common place in this day and age, that it could be coincidental.”

What was she going on about now? The girls weren’t mentally ill were they?

“What’s wrong with them, they’re fine aren’t they?”

Morgan sighed.

“If you had spent more time with them then perhaps you would have seen, but there is something special about those girls. Not every deformity is necessarily a bad thing Shane.”

“Tell me what’s wrong with them?” Shane demanded.

“We don’t know the full extent of the bond they have but it’s more than just the strange inexplicable bond that some identical twins have. I’m sure they’ll amount to great things Shane, never fear. But all this needs to stop once and for all.”

Shane wondered if she meant the strange tingling sensation Jennifer said Angela had, that ran down her separation scar. She said she always knew when her sister was about. It was like she was psychic or something.

“The Pit will not cease to drain the life and energy from this village until it has what it wants, and what it wants is the one that got away.”

If all this was true then he knew he wouldn’t be getting out alive. Upon this realization he was surprised that he didn’t become a blubbering wreck. He turned his head in the direction of Morgan.

“Please, please take this blindfold off me.”

Shane could feel Morgan’s breath on the back of his neck.

“Okay I’m going to remove the blindfold now, but I must warn you you’re not going to like what you see.”

Dread ran through Shane when she said this, his heart thudding fit to burst. Suddenly he didn’t want to see anymore.

He kept his eyes shut tight as Morgan removed the material.

Now that he was free to open his eyes and see what lay before him it was as though his eyelids were glued shut.

“Well, are you going to open your eyes and get it over with or do you want me to put the blindfold back on?”

“Just a moment please,” Shane whispered and used every bit of will power to force his eyes open.

The sight before him struck such fear in him that his bowels and bladder instantly emptied in his sweat and vomit stained clothes. His eyes and mouth went as wide as the gaping great maw that lay open before him. He was standing on the edge of the giant pit that had haunted his subconscious mind ever since his first encounter. The smell that came from the hole hit him full in the face and made him gag and spew bile over his bare feet. When he stared into the blackness, an overpowering urge to throw himself in coursed through his veins like nothing he had ever felt before. He pulled at his restraints as hard as he could and thrust his full weight towards the gaping chasm. Bucking and braying with all his strength did no good. The metal clasps only dug in and chafed his wrists until they began to bleed. Shane hollered in frustration, intent on throwing himself into the well.

After about five minutes he gave in and began to cry like a baby.

“Are you done?” Morgan asked.

The struggle had sapped all his energy. He sagged physically, as much as his restraints would allow him, in his ruined clothes. The overwhelming stench from the pit, combined with his own urine, vomit and excrement added to his ordeal finally and broke him. Shane collapsed with exhaustion.

Chapter Fourteen

“Come on you bastard!” Jack said triumphantly as the briefcase finally burst open. He didn’t know what to expect to find in there but he hoped it would at least be something valuable, or at least something to incriminate the sad bald bastard. A posh mobile phone, latest model, if he could get it hacked and unlocked it might be useful, and just boring paperwork. He chucked the case back on the bed disappointed and a letter slipped out from the pile of papers with Catherine’s name on it. He snatched it up and stuck a thumb under the seal to open it when he heard a shriek come from downstairs. Forgetting the letter, Jack ran out of the room. There was some kind of commotion in the kitchen.

Angela and Catherine were crouching beside Jennifer. Jennifer lying on the lino shaking in some kind of a fit. Her whole body was rigid, fingers were curled into claws, back arched. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head so that they were completely white and the spittle foamed around her mouth. She looked like an animal with rabies except he didn’t know what to do about it. He sunk onto his haunches.

Catherine held onto Jennifer’s shoulders as she bucked and brayed on the kitchen floor. She looked up pleadingly to her husband.

“Call a fucking ambulance you moron!” she spat with venom at her useless husband.

“Yes, yes,” Jack muttered, he fumbled with his jeans pocket, unable to take his eyes from his daughter’s face. “We need an ambulance – yes – no. What happened?” He looked at his wife. “Catherine – what happened?”

“We were just talking and she fell down,” it was Angela who answered. Catherine was attempting to put Jennifer into the recovery position. “Then she started having this, this fit.” She gestured at her sister’s convulsing figure. As if on cue, Jennifer’s seizure escalated into rapid jerking movements, she let out a shuddering scream before throwing back her head. She stared straight at her father with the whites of her eyes.

“Behold, the freak show!” She smiled strangely and returned to thrashing about like a girl possessed.

*

He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for but when he awoke the blindfold was still off and he was alone. He no longer had the frenzied urge to lunge into the blackness below him. There was an intense aching pain in his right shoulder and his wrists stung where the restraints dug into his skin. He was defeated and he knew it. A tiny part of him still clung on to the hope that someone would rescue him, but he knew that nobody would know he was missing for at least a few days. His secretary would try to contact him but, knowing he was at his mother’s funeral and staying with family in the country, would expect him to have stopped a while longer.

Was it true what Morgan had said? It seemed impossible. He searched rationally for a more realistic opinion but found none. If only the whistling in his head would quieten down to its normal level he’d be able to concentrate, maybe even think his way out of here.

He still didn’t know what The Whistler was? Did they refer to it in that way because of the ringing Morgan’s ancestor had in his head after he had survived his encounter with the pit? If that were true then it made sense as to why he had suffered with the strange tinnitus ever since his accident, only it wasn’t the car accident that caused it. It was this place. But The Whistler sounded like a thing, a living object, not something made of earth and stone.

Shane felt unseen forces drag his attention into the pit. He knew something was about to happen, his heart started to beat faster in expectation and then… he spotted a tiny light, no bigger than a pinprick, shone from far at the bottom of the well. Despite its size it seemed as bright as the sun, like a torch from someone stranded at sea on a stormy night, desperate to grasp somebody’s attention. With that spark of light, the tinnitus that he had endured for twenty years stopped. The sudden silence was surprising and almost unnatural. Shane knew then it had begun.

Rotten, stinking putrefied flesh. The stench was unbearable. It clogged up his nose and mouth.

Shane looked down at the light and wondered what it was. His curiosity was almost stronger than his fear. He heard movement behind over his left shoulder and strained his neck to see Morgan coming from the doorway that led from the cavern. Despite the crude crisscross of stiches over her eyes, she still looked beautiful and not the slightest bit menacing. Her blindness made her vulnerable as she used a silver cane to her feel her way across the cavern.

“I have a question,” Shane croaked.

“Yes?”

“Did either of your ancestors return?”

Morgan was silent for a moment before she sat at his side; her legs dangled over the edge of the pit, a small ladder ran up the right knee of her black stockings. She smiled sadly and turned her face down to him as if she sensed he was looking at her.

“Unfortunately not. As I said it was only the eldest of our ancestors who found this place. He went down there and he never returned.”

“So what did John Dury do?”

“Ah now that’s interesting, you see he tried his method on several people. Those people who survived looking down into the pit suffered intense ringing in their heads and it drove them mad, a couple even committed suicide. It was when John tested it for himself that he noticed a light appear deep down in the pit. He waited to see what it was and he found out how The Whistler works.”

Shane wasn’t any clearer on what was going on. He hung his head and sighed and noticed that the light from below had grown bigger. “I don’t understand.”

Morgan gently stroked his head and spoke softly to him.

“You see The Pit needs something to fuel its power. It needs you. Nobody yet understands it Shane, not even my family, but we understand how dangerous it is. For years now my family have kept it secret and have done our best to hold on to the land in case anyone else stumbles upon it. We had done a good job until you and your friends found it twenty years ago. You stared in to the abyss Shane and survived. Before we can seal this place up again its appetite must be sated.” She was excited and eager. “It wants you.”

“I don’t want to die!” Shane’s bitter laugh quickly dissolved into a sob.

“That’s the thing; you’re not going to die Shane. Not for a long, long time. You’ll probably outlive me!” Morgan said ceasing her stroking.

Shane looked up at her, “What do you mean?”

She simply stood up and walked towards the doorway.

“It’s your turn to be The Whistler!”

Shane didn’t know what the hell Morgan was on about. He was going to ‘become The Whistler’. What the fuck did that mean? What was The Whistler?

Shane craned his neck to look at Morgan; he could just make her out on his peripheral vision.

She smiled broadly, “Can you hear it yet?”

Shane didn’t have to ask what she meant by her question. He could hear the faint sound of feet on stone. The light down in the Pit was coming even closer. Then the source of the light climbed the ancient stone steps.

Morgan crouched by his head, “Can you see anything yet?”

Shane could. He could see that the light was moving.

“Why should I tell you what I can see? Why, when you and your father have lured me to my death?” Shane shouted at her. Morgan flinched at his outburst but her face showed her excitement.

“We’ve not lured you to your death Shane. Far from it in fact. And you’re right, you don’t have to tell me what you see but I’ll do a deal with you if you do.”

“Yeah right!” Shane hissed sarcastically.

“Well, what do you have to lose? If you tell me what it is I will unlock the clasps binding your legs and if you continue to tell me what you see when The Whistler is twenty feet away I will unlock the rest of your chains and you will be free to go.”

“You’re lying!”

“No I’m not. Here let me prove it by making the first move,” Morgan said as she stood up and careful walked around the edge of the well.

Shane held his breath as he watched her step close to the edge of The Pit.
Any minute now and all my hopes are lost
, he thought as he imagined Morgan losing her footing and plummeting down into the darkness.

Morgan made it to where he was. She lightly touched his stomach and crouched down at his feet. It unsettled him the way she stared blindly up at him, whilst her hands moved independently, unlocking and removing the clasps around his ankles. Even at a time like this he couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful she was. She rubbed his naked ankles to sooth the cuts and chafes from the metal clasps and stood up slowly.

“See I kept my part of the bargain.”

Shane moved his legs slightly. Even though they ached they managed to support his weight.
What’s to stop me from just kicking her into The Pit? The chances of survival? Of her letting me go?

He gazed into the hole. “I can see a light, and it’s moving round the outside of the well as if someone is holding it.”

Morgan’s face was a picture of fascination. She looked like a child hearing about Santa for the first time.

“What colour is the light? Is it incredibly bright or can you stand to look at it?”

“The light is white with a purplish tinge. It is not too bright to look at,” Shane said as the mysterious light rose higher and higher.

Morgan carefully made her way back to her earlier position behind Shane’s head.

Shane gasped.

“What? What is it? What do you see? Tell me!” Morgan begged frantically.

“I can see their shadow but I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.”

The footsteps were getting louder and Shane finally set eyes upon The Whistler

“Let me go, let me go, let me go! It’s close, it’s close!” Shane cried out in panic.

Morgan fumbled with the clasps on his wrists.

“Tell me what you see!” She pleaded as she freed Shane.

But Shane didn’t answer. He was free from his shackles but did not move. He was paralysed by the vision that stood before him. Terror had an ice-cold grip on his entire body; all he could do was stare at The Whistler.

An ancient man stood before him holding an oil lantern that glowed with an ethereal light. His skin looked dry brown and leathery and blended in with his filthy tattered rags. Straggly white hair hung down from its scalp beneath the patches of moss that grew on its aged skin. Shane could make out a black gash beneath a white overgrown beard that may have once been a mouth. Bones showed through the places where the skin had split. It looked like one of the mummies he’d seen on the National Geographic Channel. This was The Whistler.

It stared straight at him with two deep and seemingly empty eye sockets, but when he moved to one side, and it moved its head to look at him once more.

All this time Morgan was screamed at him, demanding to tell him what he was looking at.

“Tell me Shane!” Her face was inches away from his own and was red with frustration and rage. She was a child.

The Whistler moved towards Shane and raised a claw-like hand in his direction. Its empty eye sockets absorbed his every detail and it opened its black maw wide and released a shrill scream. Shane’s tinnitus came back a hundred-fold, his head throbbed and the pain was almost blinding. The pressure in his head was so intense that blood began to trickle from his nose and ears.

As The Whistler slowly raised a leathery hand and held his face, Shane realised with clarity what his fate was.

The Whistler started to crumble before his eyes. He watched with streaming eyes as its skin flaked away like paint and its bones disintegrated. It dropped the lantern into the well just before it burst into a cloud of dust.

As soon as The Whistler had vanished, Shane let his focus fall on The Pit behind it. As he stared into its darkness, he felt the same intense pull he had felt twenty years ago, when he’d stared into the well for the first time. It was just like an umbilical cord, attached to his insides, pulling him forward. It was almost impossible to resist.

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, it was Morgan.

“Shane please, I beg you, tell me what you saw. Quickly, before it’s too late!” Morgan pleaded as tears of desperation poured down her pale cheeks.

“Here I’ll show you,” Shane used every ounce of will power and strength he could muster to turn away from the Pit and face her. He grabbed hold of her head in his hands and pushed his thumbs against her eyelids. She screamed as her stitches burst open, tearing her eyelids to ragged pieces.

In the struggle he fell over backwards into the darkness.