One Cold October day.

As I stood upon the broken porch on this wild October evening, the old farmhouse, with its grey peeling wooden walls and its crumbing out-buildings, looked alien to me.Yet,the memories of this place haunt my soul.
I looked away from the littered and cracked wooden floorboards, through the blistered and buckled ceiling of the veranda in an act of utter desperation. An over tried method, that never worked in attempting to let the ghost riddled memories crowd upon me.
On the horizon whey coloured clouds rolled over and upon each other, into an envelope of broiling darkness that seemed to gather overhead. Across to my left, along the dark dirt road that started by the broken picket gate, I could see the yellow tape, close to where I parked my car. "There and no further" the taped line said, with words that even after ten years working with the cop's I never really wanted to read.
To the right, slowly swaying along the edge of the dark, dirt road, stood the large old oak trees; the wild whipping wind stripped them of their leaves, and left their branches to look like old spider’s limbs; that groaned and with the sound of old twisted rope, and whispered with menacing hints, that discordantly played, against the ice rain that lashed against the dirty and partially broken window panes, with a sound I can only describe as a dark hollow drumming.
In the growing twilight, their bark seemed grey and full of shadows of their own; allowing faces, twisted both with age and some fathomless cruelty, to slowly turn towards me.
It was then that I became aware of a strange scratching sound. I looked to where the sound was coming from. Though at the time I couldn't be sure, I felt in my gut, that it seemed to be coming from the old barn door. I turned towards the barn, the scratching gnawing sound happened again. Only this time I heard something else; something that sounded, disquietingly, similar to the mirthless giggle of a little child. I felt my heart begin to thump heavily in my chest as I took a cautious step forward. There was a clatter. Then there was a sudden snapping cracking of something heavy stamping upon old dried cord-wood.
I paused and held my breath.
‘Hello?...Is anyone there?’
I could hear the subtle quake in my voice, that wanted to call out his name, but I could feel my nerves begin to shred, so I tried to think about how once the sun shone warmly and how we four happy children -all boys- ran amongst the farm buildings. It was then I thought I heard the padding and then the slapping of retreating feet; and my nerves began to get the better of me.I stared at the old barn door. Not taking my eyes off it.
The world became dizzy as spots flew in front of my eyes. Then there was a sudden explosion of noise. I jumped and felt my heart rise into my mouth; as I caught a glimpse of someone or something, almost half formed -moving far too quick to get an accurate description- dart from the left side of the open broken doorway and back into the dark recesses of the old barn.
I tried to take another step. But my feet were frozen to the spot.There was something there… I could feel it…staring directly at me its hostile eyes, burning into me…chilling me to the bone.
‘Mr Freeman ?’
I jumped at the sound of the voice and suddenly turned
‘Mr Freeman?’ this time her voice her voice sounded a little cautious.
‘Yes… Richard Marcus Freeman…’I stared at the petite woman in the tight fitting grey and navy dress that revealed the right amount of cleavage and calf to keep my interest, and smiled warmly. She looked about twenty, almost half my age.‘…but you can call me Marcus…and you must be… Ms Atherton?'I smiled and reached out with my right hand.
She took it gently. It felt warm to the touch.
‘Mrs Dianna Atherton…’
‘Pleased to meet you.’I nodded. Her hair was platinum, the colour that Munroe wore so well; and it suited her too. I smiled as I held her eyes for far too long. They were large, round and green, and I thought contained a secret that I longed to touch.She took an uncertain step up onto the porch and walked by me, leaving the delicate scent of Channel No 5 in the air as she passed and walked towards the crumbing entrance. As she reached the door, she turned and smiled, and then she blushed slightly as she looked away. Pulling her white handbag, that hung from her left wrist, closer to her midriff, before examining the deadbolt.
‘I understand that you were sent here, to Boston, from New York?’
I nodded.
‘Personally I would not have called you in, but I have come to understand that you have an “expertise” that Detective Sullivan considers useful...’
Her voice sounded direct, forcing me to be more open with her than I wanted to be, I also heard the cynical slant on the word expertise and tried not to let it bother me. But it did.‘
Yes…’ I replied, feeling awkward ‘…We worked togethe-’
‘-yes, he told me, the Etherton case in ’63?’
‘He told you?’
My mind went elsewhere…into a brown, dirty cellar, filled with a pale blue chair and a pile of gritty magazines, and a man smiling at me with dead eyes. A black barrelled gun pointing in my face; and the words “Time to die mother-fucker!” shouted at me in a voice that rolled its way way through me like a freight train.
I could feel myself shake a little.
‘It’s supposed to be a-‘
‘Yes a black file?’ her voice sounded strained as she fought with the dead-lock placed on the door. Sullivan’s an old friend. And he recommended you when I called him, after I was set up as the investigating officer, once we found…’ she sighed with satisfaction as the deadlock slipped back. ‘…what we found.’
Then I heard the mirthless laugher once more, I couldn't help myself. I turned to stare towards the barn once more, feeling the nape of my neck begin to tingle.
‘Well… you better Follow me. ‘ She said, as she pulled a switch-blade from her white handbag, slit the seal of yellow tape I had seen so many times before, put the knife away and then pull out a flash light, before she opened the door.
Despite the strong smell of corruption, The hall brought back happy memories of old metal trucks being pushed along black and white tiles, their tippers full of dust and rocks, while the scent of acid sweet lemonade and rich fruity laughter came from the kitchen. Time slipped back as we almost collided.
‘Watch your step!'
I looked down and took a step back.
The naked body was large. Its yellowing skin was distended abound the stomach, which slowly slithered, writhed and undulated, giving the disturbing appearance of being alive. The throat had been ripped out, The left side of the face, the nose and the lower jaw, had been gnawed away by a wild animal, where the eyes should have been two cavernous holes where maggots slowly writhed, while plump black flies with large red eyes, angrily buzzed in sharp darts about the room. The smell of death became oppressive.
I bent over and dry wretched. After I recovered I saw Dianna placed some vicks under the nose and along the tip of her top lip. She then gave the small container to me.
‘We received a phone call at four this morning, from a person unknown, stating there was and I directly quote from the call “a cadaver found in suspicious circumstances at the Morrison farm.” By law, we have to check it out, well, two patrol officers found this, and called it in. I was called out here with Sullivan and he suggested that I call you. The rest you know.
‘You seem to be taking this rather well.’
‘My father was a butcher, I’m used to slabs of meat. Rotten or otherwise.‘What do you make of that?’Dianna pointed with her torch towards the far hall wall.
Written in blood, were the words Mors! Nex! Angelus Mortis!‘it means-‘
‘-I know what it means.’ I spoke sharply and felt ice riddle me.
‘Look…’ I could hear the strain in her voice, ‘…when Sullivan told me what happened, I couldn't believe it, I really couldn't. But when he showed me the file-‘
‘A file you were not meant to see.’
‘You know, I could have not bothered, I could have left you in that flat, what did you have planned today? Another trip to the Rehab centre? The Church you go to? Even the employment exchange? If you can do what he says you can do-‘
‘There’s only one reason that you’d call me. There’s only one reason that Sullivan would have even mentioned me at all, and that’s because there have been others... Have there been? Other’s?’
Dianna went to open her mouth.‘I can tell you by simply looking in this room that there have been at least another five, all the same, throat gouged out left to bleed out and called three weeks after the crime. All of them in farm houses just like this one. And all of them circling this place. All I also bet you can’t find any other finger prints or foot prints or any fucking thing to suggest that another person has been here and in every case those words are written on the wall.’
She stared at me, I could see she was pissed, but I had had enough, yes she was sexy, but she was also a condescending bitch that needed to know what she was up against.
‘What you want me to do is connect with him don’t you? You want me find out what happened. But even if you did know, what I know, you couldn't arrest him, or her, or it because there is no evidence to support your case, your floundering in the fucking dark with no means of support, you want this case because of what it will mean for your reputation, but what you don’t know, or seem to care about, is how I feel when I do this. Also I’ll tell you something else for free. I was born here. I lived here with my family, and I know, a fine holy fuck that if I did this for you, you wouldn't want to know the answer, because the answer will break your soul.’
I knelt by the cadaver, shook my head, and rested my hand above his heaving chest.The world began to spin. I saw cars driving at night, and the four of us Tommy, Steve, Glen and I skip in circles in the farm garden, Mum smiling, Dad smiling, a light in the sky, a light so bright that it almost blinds. Then mum screaming. My Dad, his face all bloody his eyes wild with hate. Tommy, Glenn Steve lying in a pile and my legs running, running running in the dark, More cars, driving almost over me, lights burning bright and then… laughter, cold, cruel laughter…. And a hand scaled nails like hooks, skin like wet leather… coming out at me grasping, scraping, hot foetid hungry breath longing for my flesh. Then the words came.
I opened my eyes, and roughly wiped the tears that were smarting my eyes, with the arm of my jacket.‘His name was Terrance Brannigan, he was forty five years old, he was a father of three girls and a step father to one boy, he was in love with his wife, but he was bored and was looking elsewhere for sexual excitement. He cheated in his mind, but not with his body, he was depressed because his mother died in January, and he had just lost his job at the tannery in Fulworth twenty miles away, and has no other means to support his family, he is a sad lonely man that didn't know the good he was doing was enough to please the God he feared...'
Dianna looked at me. Her eyes were open wide.‘...But What Sullivan didn't know, couldn't know, because I never told him, is that twenty years ago, something came here, it took my mum, dad and brother’s. It made me run. The police thought my dad went mad, and he did, sort of… But what that thing left me with, was a gift. The gift of being able to see the last thoughts of the dead. It’s not a blessing… it’s a curse… and the thing that gave it to me is here, in the barn, and we can’ t reason with it, trap it or even kill it.I see Dianna pull out her gun. She fires twice as the sound of heartless laugher increases. She screams… and I see a pair of eyes glowing maliciously, staring at me as they had done on one cold October day twenty years ago.