Three Mile Drove, Chapter Twenty Six
By brian cross
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CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
He’d known matters were coming to a head and the knowledge of it had seized his mind and body in nervous tremors, sending flushes of heat through his limbs and veins.
Incest had continued through the ages in this part of the land where the fingers of civilisation hadn’t reached. Ancient practices continued unnoticed by society concealed within the isolation and wilderness that formed the fens. Practices that formed the backbone of life in earlier centuries had become extinct in modern day England.
Or so it was generally thought. Age-old practice was one thing.
But it was worse than that.
And he’d been a party to it.
He knew what had been going on in the drove, the soul-less three mile stretch he’d feared to tread, he’d screwed his eyes shut, blanked his mind at the thought of it, but now at the arrival of a stranger the concealed menace had developed sharp new teeth which cut through the thin veil of his mind to expose the reality.
Claire wouldn’t let it rest. Perhaps out of concern for the daughter he knew she had, the one that Shaun Tomblin had taken with the approval of his father and had confined deep in the fens for his own purposes.
He’d seen that look in her eyes when she’d left him and known what it meant. It spoke aloud of her determination to involve the policeman McPherson, to tell him all she knew.
And she knew plenty.
She’d known about the abductions that had occurred through the years, about the Tomblins’ vulgar attempts to implant some normality into their people, only the safety of her own daughter had stopped her from advising the authorities.
Until now – upon the arrival of the stranger.
And now his own conscience had broken through the straitjacket of constraint that had held him for so long, created by the threats that Tomblin had cast about him, threats he didn’t doubt would be carried out. Again the grotesque and snarling face of Joseph leered in front of him but this time it held no venom. There was a fire beginning to rage inside him, a resolution that had begun to engulf all else.
He’d known what must be done now, and quickly.
* *
It was four when he left the house, a glance at the chiming hall clock confirmed that. Soon it would be dusk. By the time they had arrived at the old house unseen, they would be there. The little gathering of deformities and retards who unbeknown to most, inhabited ramshackle outhouses deep in the fens. Dusk was their feeding time, the only time they were released from their confines and Henry and Maisie’s house, neglected and abandoned by their daughter Claire, became their temporary sanctuary.
He knew as much, Claire had confided in him long ago, the way she could to nobody else. As a consequence he’d strayed into territory, even he, in his pastoral role had seldom ventured. There had never been a call for him to do so, small wonder now.
He’d witnessed scenes with his own eyes, through the clogged windows of the old house they’d sat chewing their scraps and bones, raw chunks of meat that had them dribbling down their filthy rags. He couldn’t witness the sight any longer, he’d turned away only to be confronted by Shaun Tomblin. Then the threats had come, reinforced at regular intervals, a hostile presence others might only perceive as unusual.
He was travelling on foot, treading little known tracks behind the huddle of houses, then skirting the boundaries of smallholdings, their white washed frontages showing intermittently between the swaying fortress of conifers that shielded them from the darkening sky.
It was as if their inhabitants felt like outcasts, that they needed to barricade themselves from the vast dome of forbidding sky that stretched down to meet the dark flat earth.
But the true outcast lay ahead of him. In the distance he could make out a bank of trees, a different shade of darkness to the lowering sky. The dyke he travelled alongside ran straight and true, like a liquid pointer across the fields to the old house on Three Mile Drove.
The windmill stood neglected and motionless as he passed, but still it made him shiver, its tall shape as sinister as the sound of the wind roaring through its broken blades.
And then suddenly he was there, staring across the narrow drove straight at the lone willow, its deformed branches an uncanny caricature of the beings that would soon be inside the house it seemed to strive to protect.
But not any more.
He’d made good time, and it wouldn’t be long before they arrived, even Claire’s daughter, that was where the great pity lay and the thought caused him great sadness. But the evil had to be eradicated once and for all. There could be no more abductions, no more nasty accidents that behind the pretence amounted to murder.
He would erase it, this was his hour –
He’d barely reached the attic when he heard the howls and screams that heralded their arrival. Amongst them the voice of the one called Joseph had once filled him with dread, but it would do that no more. He heard them clambering up the stairs, heavy footed and yet at speed. He thought for a sickening second they would climb to the attic but no, they were making it all so easy for him, as if they were willing participants in their own deaths. They’d crowded into the room below, some sort of chase had come to an end, voices raised even higher. An argument of sorts.
He lit a match from the box he’d carried and placed it amongst a pile of rags in the corner, pausing briefly while it took hold, then searched his pocket for the key he’d taken from Claire’s house when he’d last visited.
Without her knowledge –
In preparation for such a moment –
Then cautiously jumping from the attic he’d locked the door below, their own screaming had clothed their ears from the throaty click of the ageing lock and then he’d been away.
Satisfied that his mission had been achieved.
Somewhere out on the fens Shaun Tomblin would be scraping up their evening meal from the hovel of a storehouse he’d been told he used.
He would have nobody to serve to.
His little family was vanquished. There would be no more abduction in Three Mile Drove, no more killings. There would be no point.
But then as he’d left the building, watching the flames begin to tear through the roof, he’d heard the low murmur of an engine in the distance. Crossing the drove he saw what looked like a four wheel drive, and then from the cover afforded by the windmill he saw Darren Goldwater leap down from it, hesitating for a second before disappearing behind the overgrown hedge.
His heart rate on the increase again he’d heard the yells and screams from the creatures he realised the interfering stranger had managed to free. With a surge of anger and alarm he’d realised his mission hadn’t been accomplished after all.
He’d left his cover, parallel now with the track that lead between Tomblin’s and the old house. If Goldwater had turned his head once more, looked across the drove like he just had, then he would have seen him. But he was too wound up to care about that.
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