Tim O'Rourke - Dead Flesh

With the light from the candle stretching my shadow up the walls like smudged lines of mascara, I made my way down the hallway, set between the row of doors. The candlelight was weak, and I couldn’t see what lay ahead of me. I was kinda grateful for that, because I knew what lay at the end of the hallway — that rickety old staircase that led up to the attic and the hospital. That was the place where the half-breeds had been nursed by my father and Doctor Ravenwood. I had never been allowed up there, but Isidor had told me enough. He had described what he, Potter, and Kiera had discovered up there. The bodies of all those poor children, murdered by Sparky and…

Still unable to even think of his name, let alone say it, I came to the first door set into the wall on my right. The patterned wallpaper hung in torn strips and it smelt weird. The wall peered out from behind the paper, which looked scarred with black mildew and damp. Then I remembered how my father had insisted that the walls be coated with queets, the stuff that killed vampires.

The manor was very much how I had remembered it to be. I pushed against the door which swung open and then I changed my mind.

“Where has that statue come from?” I whispered. I couldn’t ever remember there being any statues in the manor — not in the grounds and definitely not inside. But then again, I couldn’t actually recall ever being in this room, so perhaps it had been here all the while. With the flame flickering before me, I cupped my hand around it, fearing that it might go out and leave me in total darkness. I could just make out that the windows had been boarded over with planks of wood so no one could see in and no one could see out. But that’s what made the statue so odd. It was kneeling down. At first I thought that it had been made to look as if it was in prayer, but as I stepped through the darkness, I could see that the figure had been shaped to look as if it were peering through a gap in the boards that covered the window. It looked as if the statue were trying to see outside.

I held the candle to the figure and could see that whoever had made it had failed to give the statue, eyes, ears, nose, and a mouth. Even so, I could tell that the figure was a young man. It had short hair and its body was carved with muscle. Not like one of those freaky bodybuilders you see on T.V., but just nice, like a well-toned guy. His upper body was naked and his lower half had been sculpted to look as if he was wearing a set of baggy jeans. As I peered through the orange glow of my light, I was mesmerised by the web of cracks and breaks that covered it. There were so many, I feared that should I touch it, it would fall apart before me in a pile of grey ash.

Apart from the statue, the room was empty. There wasn’t a bed, wardrobe, not one stitch of furniture, just the statue, which looked as if it were secretly trying to look out of the window. Then from behind me, the door suddenly slammed shut, snuffing out my light. The room went black and I screamed. With my free hand, I fumbled in my pockets for the book of matches I had found in the kitchen drawers. Placing the candle on the ground, I struck one of the matches, and a brilliant glow of orange light flared up before me and I screamed again. In my panic, I dropped the match and it went out. But in that split second of light, I had seen that statue again. He had no longer been looking out of the boarded-up window, but had now been standing before me, its blank, featureless face just inches from mine.

I stumbled back into the darkness, desperately trying to free another match from the book. But my hands were trembling so much, that it seemed impossible. Drawing a deep breath and backing away towards the closed door, I managed to free a match and strike it. At once there was a flare of orange light. With the flame jerking to and fro between my shaking fingers, I could see the statue knelt before the window.

“Get a grip, Kayla Hunt,” I spoke aloud, and even though it was my own voice in the darkness it gave me some comfort. I picked up the candle from the rough wooden floor and lit it. Snuffing out the match before it burnt my fingers, I reached out behind me and fumbled for the door handle. Unable to take my eyes from the statue, I could see that it was in exactly the same place and position it had been before the door had slammed shut and blown out my candle.

The statue hadn’t moved — it couldn’t have. I would have heard it, right? Feeling kinda dumb for spooking myself, I yanked open the door and stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I looked into the direction of the rickety staircase and, convincing myself that I had probably done enough exploring for the day, I headed back down the stairs and left the forbidden wing behind me. Maybe that old cow Ms. Payne had done me a favour by forbidding me to go up there.

I reached the bottom landing and once back in daylight, I blew out the candle. How had I been so easily spooked after everything I had seen and been through in the last year? After all, I was the dead one around here. I was the ghost stalking the stairwells and passageways. What did I have to be scared of? So, feeling embarrassed at myself, I decided not to tell the others what I had found up in the forbidden wing — especially not Potter — he really would take the piss and he didn’t need too much encouragement to do that.

So pushing the thoughts of that dumb statue from my head, I went in search of Kiera’s iPod. I needed to drown out my soundtrack — I needed to drown everything out.

As I crossed the lawn in front of the manor, my boots left footprints in the frost that covered the grass. Before I had died, I would have expected to see plumes of breath escaping from my mouth and disappearing up into the cold morning air, but that didn’t happen now. Not since I had come back. It was like I was colder on the inside than the icy cold wind that blew about me.

Before entering the woods, I looked back at the manor. It sat like a giant grey shell, its walls ancient-looking and covered in ivory like greedy, green-coloured hands. But as I looked back I noticed for the first time that all of the tarpaulin had been removed. The last time I had been at Hallowed Manor, the Forbidden Wing had been undergoing extensive repairs. The windows were still boarded up but there had been several skips surrounding that part of the manor, all of them filled with rubble. As I turned away, I wondered if Potter had removed them in an attempt to keep himself busy.

Although most of the trees had shed their leaves, there were still enough Fir and Conifers to cast the woods into a gloomy darkness. I passed amongst them, heading away from the manor in the direction that I had seen Potter head in. I came across the group of weeping willows that stood before me like a cluster of elderly people with curved backs. From within them I could hear the sound of wood breaking. Gently, I parted the branches of one of the willow trees and peered into the tiny graveyard where the half-breeds had been buried over the years when the Vampyrus had lived above ground. I hadn’t been back here since watching Murphy carry the bodies of his two dead daughters to this secluded place. With his back to me, I spied on Potter as he broke two thick branches over his knee. Then, with a piece of twine, he tied the two pieces of wood together to make a large cross. Silently, he made his way towards the other graves. I watched him as he skewered the bottom of the cross into the ground. When he had fixed it securely, he stepped back from it and looked at the cross. I knew who he was remembering and it filled me with sadness.

I pushed the branches of the weeping willows aside and made my way quietly towards him. As if hearing my approach, he looked over his shoulder at me then back at the cross he had made. Without saying anything, I stood next to him. Then taking Murphy’s crucifix and chain from around my neck, I hung it over the cross that he had fixed into the ground.