Touched

These are the first three chapters of my unfinished Horror/scary/supernatural novel.


CHAPTER 1

The Tramp Lady shared the old mine with The Darkness. It didn't try to hurt her, because she was already in darkness. Her pain was so huge and great there was nothing The Darkness could possibly do to make it worse, so it left her alone. It skulked in secret and believed the tramp lady didn't know it was there. But she did.

Every night she dreamed of the thing she'd done, and every day the pictures played through her head in an endless loop of pain. There was no room left in her head for any other thoughts. She was mad, and in her madness, she had killed her own child. He had been hurting so much, and it was the only way she knew to stop the hurt. She had crushed up the little, blue sleeping pills and mixed them in his chocolate milkshake, stirring and stirring until all the bits had dissolved. When he slept, she had taken a pillow and pushed it over his face, holding it there for a long time. He hadn't struggled; there had been too many sleeping pills for that. She held the pillow there while his chest stopped rising and falling, and she couldn't hear his breathing anymore. She'd laid her head on his chest and listened for the sound of his heart. His chest was full of silence, and still she'd held the pillow over his face, with its cute pictures of smiling, round sheep jumping over farm gates.

When she took the pillow away, his paleness shocked her. Like death. Before the pillow he had been pink and living, the pillow had changed him into a pale, still thing. Now his Daddy couldn’t hit him anymore, and he wouldn't have to writhe and twist for breath with the asthma. He'd never again wake up screaming and sweating, and crawl under the bed to spend the rest of the night hiding there from his Daddy. She had swallowed all the little, blue pills that were left in the bottle and laid down beside him, holding his limp body close and breathing in his warm boy smell. But there weren't enough pills.

She was sent to a place that was full of white. Glaring white lights that were always on, shiny white walls and people in spotless white coats. The people were faceless, white wraiths drifting past, but never coming into her world. She kept a cuddly teddy bear with her just because it wasn't white. It was blue with a bright red ribbon around its neck. The blue reminded her of the sky and of her boy's blue sweater.

Apart from everything being white, it was a soft place. The wraiths glided in rubber-soled shoes and talked in soft voices. No one ever got cross when she didn't answer questions, and no one hit her. Even the food was soft and mushy. After a while, she started to answer them because it was easier than staying silent. She did what ever they wanted. She softly took all the tablets she was given, she washed herself when they told her to, she laid down on the bed when they said she needed rest, and she answered their questions.

One day they moved her to a different place, like a house, with a lady there to take care of her and the other ones like her. She ran away. She remembered grey streets, dark doorways, deserted buildings, and rubbish bins where she found food and rats. Then, after a while, there had been green fields, so green she stared and stared. Green was good.

The old mine was a good place to live. It never got too hot or too cold, and it was always quiet, but never silent. In its dark quietness, she listened to the earth and rock as it moved and slid, a slow, deliberate sound. You had to listen carefully for a long time to hear it. She liked the peace. She stole food from the farm over the hill, mostly potatoes and carrots. Once she stole a chicken. When it squawked and fought for its life, she'd let it go so it could finish its life as it wished. Sometimes the farmer left her stuff in a cardboard box by his barn, not just vegetables. They'd been cans of soup, a tin opener and a dented saucepan, soap and antiseptic ointment and clothes. A few days later, like an afterthought he'd left boxes and boxes of matches. In the autumn, there was a big old coat and a worn sleeping bag. She liked the sleeping bag because it was blue with little white flowers. At first, she worried that the farmer would bother her. But he never did so that was Okay.

Early on, she'd hoped The Darkness would come and kill her, and she'd waited, listening in the quietness for it. But it seemed to prefer watching her pain from afar and she realised it wasn't very interested in her. So she waited patiently for death to come along, and she hoped that death was the end and that after death there would be no more dreams.

Now she was worried, her sanctuary had been violated. She'd been lying on top of her sleeping bag, staring at the rocky ceiling in the gentle light of a small fire, not seeing what was in front of her, the images and the pain playing through her head in their endless loop, when she heard voices and footsteps. Male voices, two of them. She sat bolt upright, listening intently. She doused the fire with dirt, moving quietly. It was pitch black with the fire out, but it didn't matter, she knew her way in the dark. Before the farmer had given her matches it had always been dark. The voices were near the entrance and she crept towards them, one careful stealthy foot at a time until she could peek at them from the darkness. Two men, one older, brothers she thought. They were generally poking around, looking into this corner, kicking at that rock. A stupid thing to do she thought, the rock wasn't going anywhere. The older one didn't look that smart, she didn't get his name. The big, quiet one was Amby, she heard the older one call him that.

"Amby come here, what do you think? we could lay the beds down here? And there's lots of room to get a fire going," said the older one.

"Yer. Looks fine. Dry. We'll need some sort of padding, grounds rock hard," replied Amby. He had a soft, gentle voice, not harsh like his brother's.

"And we can chain him to this big old support here," continued the older one. Amby looked at his feet, shuffling his old trainers over the loose rubble.

"Look Amby. We talked about this already. It's the only way we ain't going to be poor for the rest of our lives."

Amby looked up at his brother and sighed. "Yer. Okay…It's a bit spooky in here though don't you think? Do you think it' safe?"

The older one patted his brother's back. "You been reading too many of those spooky books boy."

They'd poked around a bit more, then left. She was very worried; it sure sounded like they planned to come back.




CHAPTER 2

The ends of the yellow and red shoelaces slithered and slipped between his fingers as he struggled to tie them. Frowning and biting his lower lip in concentration, he carefully crossed them over each other like the teachers and his Mum had taught him. Then he crossed them over again to be sure, but they slipped away once more to dangle against his Nike Air Soles. He wanted trainers like he had before. They made that yummy sound as you pulled them apart. He'd pulled them apart again and again so he could listen to that magic tearing sound. It was magic because nothing got torn, and you could do it over and over. Those trainers had worn out though, and Mum had insisted he was old enough now to have another go with shoelaces. He huffed at the little yellow and red strings dangling defiantly from his feet.

"Oh. David. I don't know. Here let me." David smiled hugely as Sarah knelt down and tied the laces for him. Not being able to tie shoe laces was one of the reasons he was at the special school for special children. He couldn't dress himself very well either. He could do a tee-shirt, but he was still learning trousers. They always twisted away form him and went the wrong way. He liked being special. Sarah took his hand and led him to the toy shelves at the side of the room.

"What shall we play?" she asked.

He thought about it. The big red fire engine was good but Simon was sitting on that pounding at the horn. He liked the little matchbox cars. Sarah liked playing with the toolbox.

"Toolbox hammer things," he said.

The light shone in her brown eyes and she fetched the big plastic toolbox, and led him to the stripy rug where they sat down. He rolled on the rug. It was soft and tickly and good to roll on. Dogs liked to roll, he liked dogs. Dogs had big love, most of them anyway. And the ones that didn't did really, but it was just hid deep inside. His mother kept telling him off about running up to dogs he didn't know, but none of them had ever hurt him.

Sarah gave him the hammer and a pile of bricks. He put one brick on top of another and hammered on the top. It bounced off. He hammered it some more and it bounced about the rug. This was good, "BANG, BANG, BANG". He put it back on top of the other brick and hit it with his hammer. It bounced off.

Sarah played with the spanner, turning and un-turning the big green plastic bolts. She was good at that sort of thing. Her nose wrinkled up in that cute way when she was concentrating.

"I want it." Simon stood over them, hands on hips. He didn't really want it. He wanted to play with them and not be on his own. Nobody ever wanted to play with Simon because he was mean and rude, and so he got meaner and ruder. "Give it to me. I want it."

David offered Simon the hammer. He snatched it and remained standing over them, his hand clamped around the hammer so hard his knuckles were white. "Give me the bricks. I want the bricks."

Sarah had stopped playing and was staring at Simon. "You have to say please when you want something. Mummy said so."

Simon's face went red. "Give them to me."

David pushed a brick along the rug towards him. "There. Hit it", he said. Simon watched him warily. David pushed another brick towards him. Dropping to a squat, Simon hit a brick once, hard, with all his strength, and looked up at David.

"Again, again, hit again," urged David.

Simon hit the brick more softly this time. He tapped it again. He tapped it over, building up a rhythm. The rhythm got more complicated and involved two bricks. David thumped his hands on the floor in glee, "BANG, BANG, BANG." Simon's face had softened a little around the edges.

The authoritative ringing of the school bell announced break time. Simon dropped his hammer and leapt to his feet. Mrs. Crimble clapped her hands to get their attention. "Now children, put your toys back on the toy shelves, and then you can go out to play."

Abandoning the hammer on the floor, Simon rushed for the door and was gone. Deliberately and with precision, Sarah placed all the tools back in the plastic toolbox, including Simon's discarded hammer. David handed her things but he didn't try putting them in. They had to go into the box in the right order and the exact right way around, all in their correct places, or Sarah would get upset. Sarah felt lost and fearful unless everything was exactly where it belonged. She placed the last one inside and closed the catch. She allowed David to take the box and put it on the shelf, although she watched very carefully to make sure he put it the exact right place. He looked at her to make sure he was doing okay, and she nodded and smiled.

It was sunny and warm outside in the playground. The first golden leaves of autumn blew and danced across the rubberised play area. Sarah jumped up and down amongst the leaves, then plonked onto the floor and sat there trying to catch leaves and put them in her pocket as they cavorted past. David liked the sky swing. Not all the children were allowed on the sky swing because some of them didn't hold on properly and were likely to fall off. The pretty swing-monitor-lady stood there to ensure you only went on if you were allowed to. David sat down. "Sky swing, pusher-pusher, higher-higher, please-please. Sky swing, pusher-pusher, higher-higher, please-please." He chanted it like a song.

"Just a minute my lad," said the swing-monitor-lady and stooped to tie his shoelaces. "Okay, hold tight David. Hold very tight. Here we go. Weeeee."

Once it was moving, he could keep it going. He'd keep it going for hours if they'd let him, or at least until he got hungry or had to go to the toilet. Swing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. As you went backward, watch the dark ground underneath rushing past, so quick. That little wait when the sky-swing reached it's highest point made his stomach float, it hovered for a moment and your body went weightless. That's what birds must feel as they soared and dived, he thought. It would be fine to be a bird for a while. Then the slow sliding back again, the excitement as the swing gained speed. Lean back, lean back as far, as far as you possibly could and watch the sky. Soft blue today with white clouds like the feather, fluffy thing his mother used to put on her powder in the morning.

The sky was always different, every day it was different. Some days it was endless grey, swirling mist like a fairy tale land that went on forever, and he imagined that strange and mysterious things happened behind that misty grey. He especially liked it just before it rained. Clouds twisting and turning, boiling, bubbling depths, the dark and light all twisting and churning together. If he were a bird, he would fly to the clouds. That would be a magic thing, even better than swinging. He could swing higher than anybody at the school. He betted he could swing higher than the teachers even, although he never saw the teachers on the sky swings. Perhaps they rode when all the children had gone home and it was dark. He'd like to ride in the dark as well, that would be fun; he'd never tried that.

He could see Sarah, grabbing the flying leaves, carefully flattening the caught ones and putting them in her pocket. Two men were striding across the playground and he stopped rocking to watch them. They wore those funny ski masks that made you get tickly stuff in your mouth; Mummy made him wear one when it was cold enough that you could make steamy breath in the air. It wasn't cold today. One man had a big hammer and he was waving it around. It was a bigger hammer than he'd ever seen before, with a big grey head. The swing-monitor-lady was rushing towards the men, and so were the other teachers in the playground, but they couldn't get close because the man was swinging the big hammer. That was naughty, to swing it like that. The sky swing had nearly stopped now that he wasn't rocking backwards and forwards anymore.

The men were coming straight at him, and suddenly he felt scared and looked to see where a grown up was. He started to get up off the sky swing when the big man, the one without the hammer, grabbed him so hard it hurt, and shoved something over his head. It went dark and smelt nasty. Bits went in his eyes and he screwed them closed. His arms were all tied up in material and he couldn't move them. He spun off the ground and the world went topsy-turvy. The fear rose big and dark in him, and all the words he knew fled his head. So he screamed over and over, "Arrrrrr. Arrrrrrrr. Arrrrrrr."

"Let him go! Let him go at once." That was Mrs. Crimble's voice, she'd stop the men and it would be okay. There was a tug on the sack wrapped around him, dragging him backwards.

"Let go bitch, Fuck off," yelled the man that wasn't carrying him, the man with the hammer, the Hammer Man.

He shouted it loud in a scary voice. And you weren't meant to say that word. It was bad and you got told off. The men were bad. At the next sound he went cold and silent. It was a wet, slow crunch and a grunt of exhaled air. Frantic screaming erupted from the other children. That sounded like Sarah. She'd be sitting on the ground, screaming, scared silly. He imagined her watching, her happy face turning to surprise as she watched the two men running with the sack, the teachers shouting. Her face breaking into fear when Mrs. Crimble was hit with the big hammer, the wild, red-faced, screaming that followed. He knew that was what the sound had been, the sound of Mrs. Crimble being hit with the big hammer. This was very, very bad. He kicked and wriggled but it was hard to move, and it was hard to breathe with the dust and damp in his nose and all the bouncing around and his head being the wrong way up.

The Big Man carrying him ran on and the screaming of the children faded. Big Man halted and lifted him off his shoulder. He thumped down on something hard and was shoved along. "Ouch," he said, but no one took any notice. The floor was vibrating and he heard an engine. He was in a car.

"Drive careful Cat, we don't want to get pulled for speeding" said Hammer Man.

"Shut it Jake. I know how to drive," replied Cat.

"Amby, shut the retard up. The noise is getting on my nerves," added Hammer Man.




CHAPTER 3

They switch vehicles into the blue Mondeo.
J burns the white van.

"Arrrrr. Arrrrr Arrrrr. Arrrrr." The boy's sound, repeated endlessly, was raucous and insistent and filled the stolen white van.

Amby shuffled closer to the lumpy sack of boy, pushing the sledgehammer aside so he could do so. The boy looked very tiny and helpless, just a mucky sack with child feet sticking out the end, clad in Nike Air trainers with neon bright yellow and red shoelaces, one dangling undone. Gently he laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. He stiffened at the touch and stopped his noise.

"David? David. It's going to be Okay. We won't hurt you. Be quiet now little one, hush the noise. It's very important you hush the noise. In a little while I'll let you out of that mucky old sack. Just a little while to wait," said Amby in his most reassuring voice. He squeezed the boy's shoulder and then stroked it, hoping to soothe him. Something must have worked because the annoying noise didn't start again, which was good, because Jake was unpredictable when he got mad.

Like when the teacher in the playground had grabbed the sack and wouldn't let go.

J had got mad, and hit her. The sledgehammer was in his hand, so that's what he used. Amby had wanted to carry the sledgehammer, and let J take the boy. He'd worried about what might happen if J's temper flashed while he was carrying that huge hammer. J had insisted Amby have the boy, because he was the strongest. Now it was done. Amby had been running with the boy on his shoulder, dragging against the weight of the teacher pulling on the sack, and it had happened behind him, so he hadn't seen. But he heard the wet, squelching thud and thought maybe there had been a crunch of smashing bone. The noise made him instantly sick to his stomach, hot, acrid bile rising in his throat, so that he'd nearly fallen to his knees and dropped the boy. Instead he'd swallowed, sudden sweat wet on his face, and kept running, the sack of boy bouncing on his shoulder. He really didn't want to look back, because he knew it would be bad, but he couldn't stop himself. A sad, crumpled heap of clothes and body lay on the playground, like a puppet with its strings torn off. In the corner of his eye, the empty child's swing rocked gently backwards and forwards.

The boy was snuffling and wriggling on the floor. "Out. Smells. Itch nose."

"Yes. It's smelly all right. We found it in the shed. Just a bit further to go. Hold on for a little while David, then I'll be able to let you out," said Amby.

"Who you?" came the voice from the sack.

Amby. "I'm Amby," he replied. He and J had agreed it would be okay to use their nicknames in front of the boy. To use different names would be too hard and they'd be apt to make mistakes anyway. The police wouldn't be able to do much with nicknames. And anyway the boy was retarded, so there was a fair chance he'd forget the names anyway.

"Amby, Amby, Amby, Amby," chanted the boy, making a little song of it.

"Yes, Amby. Hush now little one, you must be quiet," said Amby.

They were out of Wimbledon now and into Raynes Park, about to filter onto the A3, the main road that started in the heart of London, and ran Southwest all the way down to the South Coast. They'd picked their time carefully to avoid the morning rush hour. It was 11:00 am and the traffic was as quiet in London as it ever got during the day. They planned to be well out of the city before the evening rush started. Seven or eight hours of driving stretched before them.

The back of the van was noisy and uncomfortable. The metal floor was hard, and it vibrated and bumped around. There wasn't enough space for Amby's big frame to get comfortable. He'd laid the boy on top of his puffy anorak, but still, it must have been very uncomfortable for him in the sack.

Once on the A3 the they were quickly out of the built up areas of London and into the countryside. Tolworth Junction, marked by its office block looming over the road, slipped past and lost behind them. The boy stayed quiet, snuffling gently, sneezing occasionally.

"Another two or three minutes to the exit," said J.

"Sure. I know where it is," replied Kat.

They took the turnoff for the small, rich village of Esher, populated mainly by well off workers in the City, the financial district of London. A couple of turns and they were in the quiet lane where the second vehicle waited. Ideally, they'd wanted another van, but J hadn't been able to find one to steal. Like buses they were, swarmed in London like flies, cutting you up and driving like morons, but when you wanted one they all disappeared. Instead they had a two-year-old, blue Ford Mondeo, a nice common car no one would look at twice. J had switched the plates so they were pretty safe in it. Kat drove past the parked Mondeo and turned off into another lane before pulling up to let J out. He'd walk back around the corner and pick up the Mondeo. That was Amby's suggestion. There must be no possible way for the police to link the white van used for the kidnap to the blue Mondeo, their escape car. If they dumped the white van here the police would find it and come poking around, asking questions at all the nearby houses. And some nosy neighbour might just remember an unknown car parked overnight, which had gone about the time the white van appeared. It was safer to dump the van elsewhere.

J drove past in the Mondeo, and Kat pulled out to follow. Two miles of fields, sparse traffic and the odd house slipped past, with Kat keeping a discrete distance behind J. Eventually they turned down a deserted road into ancient woodland, and the Mondeo pulled over, with Kat behind. There was no one in sight and in minutes, they would have switched cars. The police had little chance of linking the Mondeo to the white van.

J was already out of the Mondeo, and opening the back doors of the van as Amby eased his big frame out of the cramped space.

"Okay David. I just got to carry you a little way. You hang on in there." He straightened up, carrying the sack of snuffling boy in front of him with both arms and headed for the Mondeo. A flickering tracery of sunlight filtered through the trees, and autumn leaves danced across the tarmac in the breeze. Ancient woodland trees loomed indifferently over the stolen vehicles.

The boy in his sack, remained still and calm, silent apart from the snuffling. Amby's burden was warm, and so light and fragile in the smelly sack. With care, Amby set his load down in the back of the Mondeo and climbed in next to him.

"Well done David, not long now. Stay quiet," said Amby. The boy lay curled on his side in the sack; he didn't take up much space or make much noise.

It was J's job to check out the white van, make sure they left nothing incriminating behind. Amby saw him lift out the sledgehammer. He swung it casually at his side, as if testing the weigh before flinging it back into the van. It took less than a minute to douse the van in petrol, poring it from the cans stashed in the back. The harsh smell of petrol drifted into the car where Amby sat.

J stepped back from the van and a box of matches appeared in his hand. He struck one, shielding the tiny flame from the gusting wind with his gloved hand, then flicked it at the van. The little orange flame sailed through the air and flickered out. He struck another. There was a powerful whoosh of ignition, and flames flared up sudden and fierce. J didn't flinch. Still as any statue, he stared into the fire.

Kat and Amby watched J in intent silence.

"Hammer Man burn," said the boy quietly from the sack.

"The way that kid talks gets on my fucking nerves," Kat snapped. She wound down the window and lent out to shout, "J? J." He turned and left the fire.