The Digger's Rest (38 page)

“
Malcolm was struck on the head by a
falling stone, Sean,” Mitch lied to him, desperately trying to
convince himself that that was, indeed, true.

“
Dr. Bramson,” he leaned in whispering,
“…other than for the disappearance of that girl, there has not been
a murder in this village or anywhere near it in over fifty years,
not since before the Great War and both events happened when
someone went into the ruins, first the girl that I followed, and
look what happened to me; now you and your people, Malcolm and that
murdered boy, within twelve hours? Something bad is going on around
here!”

Mitch felt a coldness about what Sean said.
Sean knew some-thing. Fuck! Mitch didn’t know why that should have
surprised him. Sean was a cop after all, and a CID.

“
Please take me out there,” Sean said
again.

“
Okay, let’s go,” Mitch said, throwing
up his hands as he stood up from the table; a long blackening
shadow of dread coming over his mind and his…soul.

“
Thank you, Dr. Bramson,” Sean said,
sighing with relief.

***

As they approached the entrance of the path
to the site, Sean started to tremble then stopped, turning to
Mitch. “Could I ask you for a very embarrassing favor, Dr.
Bramson?” Sean asked, a slight quiver in his voice, like a small
child who was terrified of going into the dentist’s chair.

“
Of course, Sean,” Mitch replied, his
humanity willing to give the poor man anything he
needed.

“
Would you hold my hand as we go in?”
Sean said, wiping the tears out of his eyes with his shirt
sleeve.

It made Mitch think of Simon in the theater
and his conscience telling him not to let him suffer. And it wasn’t
like he hadn’t held Jack’s hand all those times himself, when he
was young and felt so alone and so afraid, the last time being when
they were wheeling Jack into surgery after his heart attack. He
didn’t answer; he just took Sean’s hand and held it tightly as they
walked.

When they got to the towers Sean stopped and
looked up. He knew where he was. He could feel it. Almost
trance-like, he let go of Mitch’s hand and walked between the
towers, his face always looking up toward the sky as if he expected
something to come crashing down on him at any minute. Mitch
followed close behind, giving him just enough space, in case Sean
tripped and he had to jump. Sean walked forward, as if by some
divination towards the Celtic cross they’d uncovered. He brought
his hands down and touched it. “What’s this?” Sean said, running
his hands over the carvings.

“
It’s a Celtic cross we dug up from the
center of the main hall of the castle.” Sean moved slowly around,
touching it carefully, feeling the carvings. He stopped.

“
What’s that?” Sean asked, his head
cocked to the direction of Malcolm’s pit.

“
What’s what, Sean”?

“
That sound. It’s a bird, an owl, I
think.”

“
I’m sorry, Sean, I don’t hear
anything,” Mitch said, looking around into the trees, listening
closely.

“
The cross…did you move it?” Sean
asked, tensing as he held on to it.

“
It was toppled,” Mitch replied. “We
just stood it up after we uncovered it.”

“
Do you hear that?” Sean asked again,
starting to twist around, trying to locate the direction of the
sound.

“
Sean, I don’t hear anything. What is
it?” Mitch said getting nervous; going close to where Sean stood by
the cross. Before he could reach him Sean began twirling in a
circle, his arms outstretched to the sky.

“
Oh, Lord!” Sean shouted, the sound of
owls screeching in his ears became almost deafening. “Oh Lord!” he
cried out again, turning faster in every direction in an ever
widening circle, tripping and stumbling over the uneven
ground.

“
Oh Lord! Oh Lord!”

Mitch got scared and went to Sean, trying to
take him by the arm. Something bad was happening. He didn’t know
what, but it felt really…bad.

“
Oh Lord!” Sean kept crying out,
resisting Mitch’s attempts to hold him still. He was in some kind
of religious ecstasy, like the fanatics who claim that God, the
Virgin, Jesus or some saint or other has been talking to them; like
he was hearing voices coming at him from all directions. He kept
turning to where he heard the last sound. Mitch couldn’t hear
anything. It was quiet, not even the sound of birds.

“
Sean, let’s go. Come on,” Mitch said,
panic welling in his stomach as he tugged at Sean…he wouldn’t
budge. Instead he pulled farther away; spinning like a top, around
and around, calling to God. Mitch tried to hold on to him but he
had a hysterical strength, pulling away, like he didn’t even know
Mitch was there. Mitch grabbed at him again, putting his arms
around him in a bear hug, holding him with all his might. “Sean,
Stop! Please stop!”

“
Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord.” Sean kept crying
out to the sky, then with a burst of energy he pulled away
violently, but it wasn’t like he’d pulled away. It was more like
something pulled him away, breaking Mitch’s hold on him and taking
him to the area behind the cross in a fever pitch of movement,
chanting, “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!”

Suddenly Sean gave out one long terrified
scream of agony and fell to his knees, beating at his lower body
and legs. “Snakes! Snakes!” he screamed, feeling them crawl up his
legs, dozens of them, hundreds of them, slithering around his
limbs, covering him; then wolves, tearing the flesh from his upper
body with razor-sharp fangs, pulling and gnawing; screams of
torment and agony. Another shrill cry and Sean fell over on his
side, rolling on the ground like a man on fire. Shaking and
twisting on the ground like he’d been struck by lightning, then
nothing, no movement, stillness.

Mitch ran to him, kneeling down beside him.
“Sean! Sean!” He pulled him into his arms, “Sean, please. Wake up!
Please wake up,” he cried as he held him close, rocking him and
holding him tightly.

Sean’s eyes opened then his mouth, but no
sound came out, only a strangled garbled sound. “Uh…ah…eh…”

Mitch had heard those sounds before. The man
had been struck dumb. He pulled Sean in close to his chest, holding
him as tightly as he could, crying like a baby. “It’s my fault,
Sean. It’s my fault.”

Chapter XVII

DECLAN

Heaven can wait, And a band of Angels
wrapped up in my heart, Will take me through the lonely night,
Through the cold of the day. And I know, I know, Heaven can wait,
And all the gods come down here just to sing for me, And the
melody's gonna make me fly, Without pain, without fear.

Heaven Can Wait

……
..As performed by
Meatloaf

Deck sat by Malcolm’s bed, holding his hand;
Ivy pacing at the foot of the bed. He took Malcolm’s lifeless hand
and put it to his face, holding it close, and started to cry. Quiet
tears of regret and loneliness for his brother, thinking about how
he must have hurt him that day in the kitchen when he told him he
wanted to go to America. “I didn’t mean it, Mal,” he whispered as
he wept over the still body. “I won’t go away, I promise, I won’t
leave you. I’ll take care of you, always,” he said, remembering all
the times in his life that Malcolm had looked after him, all the
things Mal had done for him out of love that he took for granted
for so many years and might never know again.

Moved to action by her brother’s grief, Ivy
stopped pacing and went to him, putting her arms around him, “We
will always be together, we’ll take care of him together,” and put
her head on his shoulder to hold him and cry with him.

They had no way of knowing that while they
were at the hospital on the one side of the county that Dr.
Mitchell Bramson was pulling up to the hospital on the other side
of the county, driving like a mad man with only the barest presence
of mind not to deliver a patient to the same hospital two days
running. On the verge of hysteria himself when he ran into the
Emergency entrance for help to get Sean Donnelly out of the car, he
couldn’t even remember how he got him into the car to get
there.

The minute the reception nurse saw him she
knew from his dilated eyes, lack of color and nonsensical babbling
that he was in shock and called for a doctor, only gathering from
his babbling that there was someone else in the car outside. The
attendants took each of the men into separate areas; the first
doctor immediately gave Mitch a shot to calm him down and trying to
get a sensible story out of him about what’d happened to the other
man.

At first Mitch could only give their names
and that they were from Exton, he by way of America. From there all
he could say was that they were out walking and that Sean seemed to
go into some sort of a convulsion, then fell over and woke up dumb.
There was no way he could ever have told them what he really
thought, that something out at the site had hexed him; cursed him.
It would mean the psyche ward for him and they’d never let him out.
As it was, they seemed hesitant to come too close to him and called
a psychiatrist in to interview him before they would agree to let
him go.

But he didn’t go. He sat out in the waiting
room to find out about Sean. He could never just leave him there.
He was already overwhelmed with guilt for letting the man convince
him to take him out to the site in the first place. He should have
known better. After what he’d seen and heard from him in the bar
that first night, and then later in his room, he should have known.
It was irresponsible, unforgivable…and all his fault, so that when
Julie Donnelly came through the door, he was already primed for
what would follow.

He stood up when he saw her. “Devil! Bastard
devil! Look what you’ve done,” she spat as she rushed passed him to
the reception desk. He followed her.

“
Please, Mrs. Donnelly, I’m so sorry,”
he pleaded, almost slurring from the medication they’d given
him.

“
Don’t you come near me, you bastard.
You’re a devil!” she hissed at him, her hate filled eyes brimming
with tears. “I told ’im you were no good, that nothing good would
come of you, but ’e wouldn’t listen.” She burst into tears. “Just
leave us alone!” she screamed at him. The nurse came around the
desk and took her by the arm into the room where they had
Sean.

I deserved that, and
more,
Mitch thought as he walked back to the car, his
head hanging low, his hair hiding his face; shame and
guilt.

***

When Deck and Ivy got back to the inn after
seeing Malcolm, there was some sense of calm about the place. Jed
and Fi had made sure breakfast and lunch went off alright and Ivy
was relieved to see that Mal looked well. His color was good. The
doctor said all his vital signs were stable and that his brain
scans were normal so if all went well, he might regain
consciousness soon.

The doctor also told her that he was
impressed with Malcolm’s remarkable recuperative powers saying that
when he came in the early scans had shown signs of brain damage but
that the morning’s follow-up scans proved the earlier tests wrong,
although he couldn’t be sure there wouldn’t be any permanent brain
damage until he was tested while conscious.

On the other hand, Deck was not feeling well
at all. He was tired and feverish. All he wanted to do was go
upstairs to his room and get some sleep. It had all been too much
for him. He just wanted to forget about it for a little while, so,
seeing that Ivy was calmed, the inn was quiet and Jed seemed more
grown up than he’d ever seen him before, he decided it was time to
give old Deck a rest and he went upstairs. He’d forgotten all about
his leg until he sat down in his chair to take off his boots and
saw the end of the bandage sticking out from under his sock. He
took off his pants figuring it was just as good a time as any to
change the bandage and clean the wound again.

When he took off the bandage, the smell
made his head swim. When he saw it, he had to sit back down. The
wound was closed, but not only was the flesh around it still black,
it was covered with thick layers of what looked like scales, sickly
greenish scales over black skin; and it had spread, starting down
by his ankle and creeping up towards his knee.
Fuck, it must be infected,
he thought, his mind
scrambling for what to do.

He got up slowly and went into his bathroom,
tuning on the hot water in his tub and continued the process he’d
started the day before, antiseptic, alcohol, iodine, adding now
bleach that was used to clean the tub. He scrubbed it and doused it
and scrubbed it again, finally dousing it with the bleach before
pouring the iodine over it and wrapping it again.

As he turned to leave the room, he looked in
the mirror, his eyes were different, the color had seemed to change
and his lips and tongue seemed to be taking on a bluish tint. His
stomach revolted and he threw up the toilet seat just in time to
vomit into it, little black flecks swimming around in the thick
yellow bile that came out of his throat.

Feeling his consciousness slipping away, he
fell to his knees, then over on his back using the last of his
energy to roll over on his stomach and crawl into his bed before
passing out.

***

“
Deck, it’s dinner time. You’ve been
sleeping most of the day and you’ve still got to eat before your
shift,” Jed called through the door in between knocks. At first
there was no response, but after the second knock he heard Deck’s
voice, raspy, call out. “I’m sick, Jed. I can’t come down
tonight.”