The sky was a
pinkish grey when they arrived at Litchfield College, a precursor to the
obscured setting sun. At the reception the
handsome African security-guard nodded at Louise and then smiled at Celia. “Hey there, goddess,” he said, winking at her
like usual.
“Hey, Joseph. How’s your girlfriend? She liked the present?”
He chuckled. “Oh, my goodness, she loved it…”
Celia winked back at him. “See, she’ll want you forever and a day
now. You’re still writing?”
“Sure, every night.”
“Good man.
Don’t hold out on me when it’s done.”
As they wandered down the corridor Joseph called out to them.
“Place is empty, only Amy and John are on
site.”
“No worries,” Celia called back. They walked Litchfield’s empty corridors,
towards the English Department, passing darkened seminar rooms.
Amy Lubec was in the one with the arched
windows. The small black woman was in
her early sixties, with glasses on a chain around her neck, searching through
papers on a desk. There were open
cartons of books everywhere. Celia
whistled and she glanced up. “Oh, hey there
honey,” she chirped, her accent a throaty French-Canadian.
Celia introduced Amy to Louise. “I’m thinking about firing her, Louise,” said
Amy with an arched eyebrow.
“If you fired me…I’d come back and burn
this place to the ground.”
Amy grinned at Celia. “I don’t doubt it.”
“I just came to use the terminal; wanted
to access the Writers Database. Is that
okay with you?”
Amy Lubec shrugged and nodded. “You could’ve just logged in from home, but sure. Go for it. I’ll be setting off in a
moment.” She returned to packing and
Celia went to the terminal.
Louise stared absently at books on
shelves. “Nice selection,” she muttered.
At the keyboard Celia entered her
user-number and password. She accessed
the database, typing in the name Richard Hobbes. The screen bleeped.
Richard
Hobbes – The Clockhost, published in 1969
by Tempest Press. The Dollmen, published in 1974 by Tempest Press. London:
An Occult History, published in 1996 by Hades House.
Celia frowned at
what she’d read. The same company that published
both of her books had also published one of his. She tapped at the keyboard again, bringing up
a small personal file.
Richard
Hobbes. Born on October 22nd
1928, Berlin, Germany. He was the eldest
son of a displaced London banking family.
A very wealthy man, not much else is known about him. He shunned publicity and press all his
life.
The
Clockhost and The Dollmen are his
only commercial works of fiction. In
1976 The Dollmen won the Dark Heart
award for ‘Best Horror’. London: An Occult History was his only
work of non-fiction and his last book.
He died on October 21st 2002, a day before his seventy-fourth
birthday. Berlin Police found him hung
in a hotel room, verdict of suicide – a very tragic end to this elderly writer’s
life.
Celia inhaled
deeply at the information on the screen.
It was gruesome. They didn’t kill you? You really took your own life? I tried and failed.
Amy Lubec put her coat on. “I’m off then. I’ll tell Joseph you’re still here.” She winked at them both. “Bye girls.”
Louise ignored her but Celia smiled in
confession, “Bye Amy.” The older woman
left them alone in the room with the arched windows.
“He killed himself, Lou. And his last book was published by Hades
House. I need to talk to Paulie…”
Louise turned from the bookcase and came
up behind her lover, staring at the computer screen. Celia tapped rapidly at the keyboard.
The Dollmen; Tempest Press, 1974. A twisted urban fairy-tale. Young Max dreams of Bogeymen, nightmarish
monsters. A childish terror it would
seem. But when a series of brutal
murders draw Max and his mother into an unholy secret world, he discovers that
the Dollmen have a reality all their own, and the boy must face the truth of
his darkest fear.
“Jesus, that’s fucked up,” Louise muttered,
reading the text. “These are some fucked
up people.” Celia was quiet, staring at
the screen. “This Hobbes, Cee, he was
obviously not right in the head.
Clockhost, Dollmen – no wonder he hanged himself.”
A dark thought entered Ceila’s mind,
gaining credibility as it traversed her intellect. Maybe this was some kind of cult, a strange mix
of mysticism and Christian dogma – a psychological con trick to control the
weak and wounded. Maybe Alice Gray had
gotten in too deep. The thought made her
shudder lightly and she shook it off.
Above Celia and Louise the electric lights
suddenly flickered and died.
The room was thrust into darkness. The only illumination came from the glowing
computer screen.
“What the hell…?” Louise murmured.
Through the arched windows the sun had set
and Celia felt a frightening sense of inertia.
The computer bleeped, the screen faded.
There was almost complete darkness now, except for the faint sodium glow
of the security-lamps outside.
She heard Louise beside her, “Oh, God…did
someone cut the power?” Louise grabbed
blindly at her arm in the dark. “We need
to get out of here, Cee…”
They hurried out into the darkened
hallway, alone in the emptiness. “Amy? Amy!”
There was no reply. The
queasiness in Celia’s gut deepened.
“Come on.” She took Louise’s
hand.
They moved quickly through the English
Department towards an emergency exit, a red sign glowing above it in the
shadows. Celia grabbed the metal bar and
pushed it but the door wouldn’t move.
She pushed forward again, and then again. It wouldn’t budge. When Celia finally spoke it came out a
whisper. “Someone’s chained it shut from
the outside…”
“Oh God…” Louise murmured. Her face was cast in a red glow from the sign
above them. Celia glanced down the
corridor.
“Joseph wouldn’t lock us in. We have to find another way out…Come on.”
They hurried back down the corridor,
turning a corner. Celia froze for a
moment. She snatched Louise’s arm,
pulling her back. Further down the
hallway, in the moonlight through the windows, there were two girls standing
completely still, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.
The girls were twins. Identical faces.
One of them had hair that was dyed
blood-red, wearing a short black dress.
The other had hair that was night-black, wearing a short red dress. The effect seemed designed to disturb or
amuse whoever they came across.
Louise murmured, “Is this some kind of
joke…?”
Celia pulled at Louise, taking backward
steps. The two girls watched them,
silent and still like mannequins, a duality of red and black, black and
red. The twins glanced at each other. In the moonlight, knives flashed in their pale
hands.
“Run,”
came the word from Celia’s throat.
She pulled at Louise. They both turned on their heels and fled. They didn’t look back, hurrying through the
library corridor into the Business Department, towards the furthest emergency
exit. They were shrouded in darkness as
they ran. Louise seemed to beg answers
with every breath. Celia slammed up
against the exit door, shoving hard and shoving again. It was chained from the outside like the
other one.
“No…No…”
Celia began kicking hopelessly at the door.
“I don’t want to die here…” Louise’s voice was ragged and trembling.
At the other end of the corridor Celia saw
them, back-lit like paper dolls. They
began walking, fluidly synchronous.
Louise had an expression on her face like she might shatter right there,
like she might never be sane again.
Celia pulled her forward, towards the advancing duality of red and black. They carefully raised the knives in their
hands as though performing some grotesque stage-play. Celia jerked to the left, dragging Louise
into a darkened seminar room, slamming it shut and locking it behind them. The handle rattled and they back-stepped from
the door.
“What the fuck is happening…” Louise
murmured to no one but herself.
Celia’s eyes darted about in the
shadow. She grabbed a chair, lifted it,
and with a full swing she hurled it through the window. Glass exploded outwards. “Go, move!”
They scrambled through the empty frame,
past the chair, and began running across the grass beneath the black sky,
towards the car park. Neither of them
broke the run to Celia’s Ford.
When they clambered inside, Louise let out
a ragged moan like a razor lodged in her chest.
The engine turned over smoothly. Celia
reversed and pulled away fast, slicing across the car park.
The twin girls were somehow standing out
on the grass; red and black, black and red – the flash of knives in pale
hands. When Celia glanced in the
rear-view seconds later they were gone.
“Oh God…” Louise rasped. She’d seen it too.
Finally, when her adrenaline slowed and
she eased off the accelerator, Celia had to do all she could to keep from
sobbing.
They drove for
half an hour before either one of them spoke.
Louise was almost shivering in the passenger seat, glancing at Celia
from hooded eyes. Celia felt sick inside. Her lover looked hopeless, leaning back in
the seat and staring through the windscreen at nothing.
“This isn’t happening…I refuse…”
Celia’s mind was a blank. She struggled to think. Those
girls, Christ…everything so wrong about them…so wrong…Jesus…
“I can’t believe this,” muttered Louise,
pressing her hands to her eyes. “That
was like something from The Shining. This is Madness.” They drove in silence until Louise finally
looked at Celia again, eyes wide as coins.
“Where’re we going?”
Celia shook her head for a long time
before replying, “I don’t know.”
***
The sister twins
were as intimate as two beings could be.
They were connected but separate, united and also divided, two minds and
one. They shared a dream from a poem
told to them by a Teacher of the Clock – a dream about a garden. They were good, always good, but the shared
dream remained a secret. Neither girl
told Miss Renn or Mr Finn. The dream was
sanctified. Together, lifting them above
the shadows hence. They would never
tell. Not Crimson, not Ebony. The dream made them true sisters, almost
lovers…
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I had never seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And Thou shalt not writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
…From ‘Songs of
Experience’ by William Blake. Crimson
& Ebony heard it often when they were younger, read to them at bedtime by
the man with the black eyes. Mr
Haven. Never questioning how he could
read with those eyes, of course. They
would dream of compromised light.
“Celia, run away from here…” Secretly the sister twins knew they were the
fingers of the fallen ones. They were
the hands of those that lived in cruelty.
The Garden of Love really was filled with graves and tomb-stones where
flowers should be, sadly so. The girls were
sitting quietly in the half-lit Circle Room.
Eyes lifted slightly as the door opened.
Miss Renn stepped into the space with
them. The bald black woman approached
them with vague amusement on her lips.
Crimson & Ebony were silent.
“Well…?” The sister twins looked
up at her.
“Ran away,” murmured Ebony.
“Ran away,” murmured Crimson.
The woman appraised the girls. “Mr Finn will be upset now, won’t he?” The girls nodded. Miss Renn stepped forward, placing her hands
on their shoulders, her flat eyes gleaming.
“You did what was essentially required.
Don’t fret, you’re both good girls.”
She turned, leaving the girls alone in the
Circle Room. The sister twins glanced at
one another. Poor Celia, she was
good…always good. But Crimson & Ebony
kept their sadness inside, far from the ticking of the Clock. They went to the Garden of Love, and saw what
they had never seen. A Chapel was built
in the midst, where they used to play on the green.
***
In her chains, in
shrouded darkness, Emily Fisher had sensed something. Something deep inside her mind that felt like
her brother. Ryan. She could almost taste him, almost smell
him. He was alive! If she had any
strength left she would have cried. It
was Ryan, she knew it. A brief
connection, but…he thought she was dead.
“Ryan,” she moaned softly amongst the
shadows, “Ryan, I’m here…I’m here.”
But Emily was alone, deep in darkness
somewhere. The pretty glowing
butterflies hadn’t come back. So she
waited for them to come, to kill her.
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