Three Mile Drove, Chapter Twenty Three

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Rain splattered through the barn roof, depositing its droplets onto Darren’s brow with all the consistency of a dripping tap. He tried to move his hands but found he couldn’t, so tightly had they been bound behind his back. The dimly lit barn creaked with the strength of the wind, and from all around him came a cacophony of screams that threatened to shatter his ears. Shadowy figures circled him, their deformed shapes eerily illuminated by the weak glow of an oil lamp which drew dark, unnatural silhouettes onto the straw covered floor. One began to dance around him as if it were performing some kind of ritual, then stopping, peered over him so that he could feel the stink of its breath.

So sickly was it that Darren recoiled, slamming his head against the wooden column to which he was tied. He was only vaguely aware of the pain that passed through his head, the enormity of the face that leered at him held him spellbound. Out of all proportion to the body, a large flat forehead, so much like Tomblin’s kids but this was more prominent, made even more so by staring eyes that sunk into their sockets, and this one he could only guess to be a teenager. The tiny bead like eyes closed in on him and the thin twisted mouth leered. Darren swung his head in disgust at the silvery slime that dripped from its mouth, the smell putrefying the already vile air.

The atmosphere was so thick he could hardly breathe. Surely he was in the middle of some nightmarish dream, like the one that plagued him the night he was swept along the dyke. Surely soon he would awaken and find himself back in Nottingham, back in his world of music, nights of drinking and drugs, sex and violent rows with Goldie.

Even that would be preferable to this.
But no dream could purvey the foul stench of this place; no dream could create the smell, the sound of cries, and the rush of the wind through the beams and the feel of raindrops on his face. No dream on earth could produce this effect.

‘Away Joseph, away!’ a thick voice barked out, scything through the screams and through the quivering light thrown by the oil lamps he saw Tomblin brush the figure aside.

‘So you’re not only a stranger who trespasses on my property fella, you set fire to a house knowing there were kids inside!’ Tomblin’s dark eyes glaring in the waning light, he swung to the semi-circle of kids around him, Darren became aware of hands to large for arms, of crooked spines that spoke of age, even in adolescence. ‘What do you say we do with him eh? Make him suffer the same fate that would have befallen you?’ He turned back to Darren, a smile suggesting hate rather than amusement as a renewed cacophony of screams filled the air.

‘What the hell…’ Darren struggled but the ropes only burned deeper into his wrists, ‘I got them out, the house was on fire, I freed them, tell him!’ Darren yelled at the figures that surrounded him but he saw only excitement on the pathetic faces. He shook his head at his own stupidity, not a single one could speak, let alone apprehend.

‘I only tried to save them,’ he shook his head then lifted his gaze to meet Tomblin’s glare head on, ‘What have you done with the girl?’

‘Ain’t for you to know.’

Darren scowled at Tomblin’s dismissive response, his temper reach new limits in spite of his predicament, ‘And the young kid that went missing, you know about that too don’t you…she’s here…’

‘Shut your big mouth up fella.’

Darren flinched in the cavernous barn as Tomblin slapped his hands together forcefully, the strike almost simultaneous with the thunder that rolled outside.

Maybe it was Tomblin’s loud clap, maybe it was the thunder itself, but the deformities scurried away, howling their frenzied cries, to a corner of the barn that the flickering light barely reached.

Tomblin turned and stood before him, a mountain of a man, even more intimidating now than the night he’d first laid eyes on him. Viewed from where he was, tied to the wooded barn stanchion and looking up into his face, the yellow teeth he bared seemed to have an extra largeness and sharpness about them.

‘Seems strangers can’t do what they’re told, they can’t keep their noses out.’ Tomblin leaned forward, placing his hands on Darren’s lapels and jerking him forward so that the bonds securing him to the stanchion cut deeply into his wrists. He cried out in pain.

‘Ain’t no use screaming fella. Ain’t nobody going to find you out here, ain’t nobody going to even try.’ Tomblin sneered, flinging him back against the stanchion, Darren felt his back burn from the force of it. ‘You should have stayed out, kept well away, city dweller, townie, whatever you are you’ve no rights around here. You lost the last one when you set fire to the house.’

Tomblin began to pace back and forth, Darren noticed him cast a fierce eye on the mutants cackling in the far corner.

Mutants, that was the only word he could use to describe them.

But Darren noticed something more than Tomblin’s natural violence and aggression, and although he feared for his life more than ever before, he sensed something more in Tomblin’s behaviour. The continued pacing told him as much as the hand that raked repeatedly through his hair.

For all his threatening violence and aggression, Tomblin didn’t know what to do with him. And Tomblin seemed convinced he’d set fire to the house, but where had he been if he’d not done that much himself? How could he not have seen the fire from his own house? Unless he’d been in this wilderness all the while…

But then if Tomblin hadn’t done, then who had? Finding the kids locked in that room while the fire raged above had been no accident…

One thing was certain though, he might have suddenly been cast back three hundred years if he didn’t know better, and if he spent any length of time in this place he’d soon lose all sense of rationality, he’d become the latest addition to the freak show.

Darren sighed, the droplets of rain had soaked him through but of course Tomblin wasn’t concerned about that. Tomblin was worried as much as he was violent. Worried perhaps that someone else might follow him, witness these disgusting conditions and the assembly of retarded and grossly deformed kids. Perhaps find more.

But Tomblin was also unstable, you didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to figure that one out. In the end he couldn’t envisage anything else other than ending up dead. All he could do was to play for time, it might serve no purpose, but it wasn’t in his nature to give up so easily.

‘I don’t understand this, I don’t want to understand it. I thought these sort of freaks only existed in fiction books. I only want to find the…’

‘Freaks you call them,’ Tomblin turned angrily, ‘We’ve only got our own cells to breed from, only sometimes it don’t happen the way it should, and there ain’t nothing you can do, ‘cause that’s the way God made them.’

‘What’s God got to do with it, it’s utterly vile,’ Darren forced the words from his mouth, expecting the ultimate response to his recklessness, but Tomblin hadn’t heard, he’d moved across the barn to the oil lamp, sweeping it up with his hand. Darren couldn’t help but notice the huge hands and tiny fingers, and the way he limped at speed to the far corner. ‘You talk about fiction, fella, but don’t you know fiction exists through fact. I ain’t so thick I can’t see that. And these creatures that you see here prove it.’

He shone the light into their faces, producing an outburst of shrieks, which rifled through Darren’s ears. ‘Each one of them has something the other wants – a good eye, a good arm, it’s just wrong pieces on wrong bodies, that’s what it amounts to. And it ain’t their fault.’

Now in the light of the oil lamp, the ugliness of Tomblin’s features – the huge nose, large forehead, deep set eyes, gross ears that seemed like jug handles, uneven jutting jaw… were never better displayed.

‘I think it amounts to a lot more than that. This is revolting,’ Darren shouted at the top of his voice. He was losing control of his senses and emotions, he knew that. The smell, the sights, the disgusting state of these mutants, it was all too much.

‘But there’s more to this than revulsion, I reckon you’ve abducted a kid, God only knows why, introducing her to this. You know where she is, don’t you. And that other girl I saw, it’s obvious she don’t belong here, give them to me and I’ll go.’

Darren’s head began to spin, a sudden sickness surged through him, but he wasn’t succumbing to it. Not yet.

‘Abducted a kid? You mean taking without consent,’ Tomblin’s face broadened into an ugly sneer, ‘yeah I ain’t so thick I don’t know what the word means fella,’ he placed a hand to the neck of his tee shirt, and clutched at something. In the light thrown by the lamp it seemed like some kind of heavy gold chain, not the sort of thing he expected Tomblin to possess. He found himself briefly wondering who he’d plundered it from.

‘What makes you think I know anything about any kid – and anyway how comes someone who sets fire to a house full of kids gives a fuck? Answer me that fella!’

Beside him the collection of misfits began to shriek and clamour, as if they understood what Tomblin was saying. He threw an angry hand in their direction, then cast a wary eye on the one he called Joseph. Its twisted mouth creased into a contemptuous smile. Darren looked away, he didn’t think anything that gross could even manage a smile; it only seemed to make it more loathsome. Then it faded, as crouched in the corner it turned its small, hooded eyes upon him menacingly. An instant ago there had been a certain satisfaction on that face; it might be deformed and ugly, but it seemed to possess more evil than anything he’d seen, and despite that gross deformity, there was some kind of basic intelligence. It told him that he’d struck head on, that it knew about the missing child.

Tomblin seemed to realise what Darren had been thinking. He shrugged, ‘Shame about the kid,’ he said, as if he didn’t really mean it, ‘nice enough kid, only Joseph didn’t see it that way, he didn’t take to her.’ Tomblin shuffled his feet, turning his gaze on the large, deformed figure, ‘Did you now? He got hold of her one day when I weren’t looking; I tried to free her but I weren’t quick enough, she was already dead before I got her out of his arms. Joseph didn’t mean it, he doesn’t understand, see?’

Darren forced himself to look at the face again, driven by disgust. Oh Joseph understood alright. He saw the slight incline of the head, the open mouth and broken yellow teeth. His focus fell on Joseph’s arms and hands. Thick arms and hands; out of proportion with the skinny hunched body, with hands that might have been carbon copies of Tomblin’s. Double the size of his own, but with small, skeletal fingers. He almost choked, overcome with nausea. That the evil monster in the corner, obviously the ring leader of these beings, was capable of murder he didn’t doubt one bit. Even Tomblin, he noticed, seemed to be wary of it.

It came to Darren then, as a bolt of lightning illuminated the barn, just what his own fate would be. He tried a sudden wrench on the bonding with all his might, but the rope just bit deeper into his wrists.

‘Wouldn’t do you no good, anyhow stranger. You wouldn’t even make it to the door, let alone find a way back to your cosy city dweller life.’

‘Why abduct the poor kid in the first place!’ Darren shouted above the thunder, ‘surely not just to feed your sick relations.’

‘But sick relations are just what they are, don’t you see that. Don’t you listen, fella?’ Tomblin glanced again at Joseph with what Darren thought was his version of a smile. ‘It’s not their fault, I told you that, didn’t I? That’s why the child was abducted as you say in your city jargon. So that when she was old enough, when she’d got used to our little family, she might help us produce normal offspring, help put everything right. But it wasn’t to be, was it Joseph?’

‘For Christ’s sake, let me out of here, I’ve heard enough.’ Darren struggled for breath; his head was spinning so fast he might have spent night and day on a roller coaster. ‘People will come looking for me.’

Tomblin gave a wild laugh that caught in his throat, ‘Come looking for you – here? On a night like this.’ He spread his big arms wide, turning to the mutants who began a chorus of shrieks so loud that not even the wind and thunder were audible. ‘Let me tell you stranger, folk don’t know, they don’t care whether this place exists at the best of times, let alone on a night like this. You’ve not got a chance in hell now of anybody finding you. But don’t fret, so.’

Darren saw a fleeting smile cross Tomblin’s face, watched as he walked to the opposite corner of the barn, oil lamp in his hand. The dwindling light revealed the girl he had seen run from the house, her face was dirty, her hair matted and soiled, and it seemed to her now that her face looked oddly familiar.

Darren saw the girl’s features reflect apprehension and then fear as Tomblin approached, he saw her flinch and then rasped his wrists on the rope as he lurched forward trying to break free.

Tomblin stretched his free arm, grabbing the girl and dragging her towards him. Thoughts began racing through his mind as vividly as the lightning bolts, which flashed through the night, uncontrollable, anguished thoughts. In the corner, where the others sat, lightning suddenly flashed yellow forks and as it did so Tomblin turned, beckoning Joseph to his side. Despite his withered frame he was there with a speed that disturbed him.

Tomblin raised the oil lamp high, narrowed eyes suddenly wide and intense, ‘These people don’t get much entertainment, I think it’s time they did, don’t you? You might also find you enjoy it, besides afterwards I might consider letting you go.’

He placed the oil lamp carefully aside, so that its glow flooded the makeshift arena. ‘ You and her. Do it now.’

Darren didn’t think he could feel any sicker, but the prospect of mating with a girl who was still a child pushed his repulsion to new limits. As for letting him go, he didn’t believe that one bit. He was going to be fodder for Joseph and there was no way out of here other than to use his initiative. At present, that was at a pretty low ebb.

Tomblin pointed a finger at Darren and then lowered it to the rope, ‘Joseph, free the stranger for a while, let the exhibition begin.’

It all happened so quickly, Joseph simply bent behind him, the powerful arms breaking the rope as though it were thread.

Darren glanced around, if he was going to get out he had to do it now, the moment the ogre released its grip, but even as the thought crossed his mind he dismissed it. He couldn’t just run and leave the child, and yet he couldn’t take her either, he’d never make it, he didn’t doubt that Joseph would see to that even if Tomblin didn’t. He knew it was capable of inflicting injury as well as pain, Tomblin’s own words had confirmed that. He tried to keep his eyes on the girl, to somehow reassure her, but it was a hopeless task, her own eyes were flashing in all directions.

‘Get on with it,’ Tomblin growled, ‘just do what’s natural, it’s the oldest thing since time began, as if you didn’t know.’

Darren glared, he was about to let his emotions get the better of him until Tomblin’s attention was distracted by a sudden flapping coming from the area where he’d first seen the girl. It was the kind of sound that reminded him of a tent with a couple of pegs removed, and he watched as Tomblin shone the lamp, moving towards it with a speed that accentuated his limp.

The big deformed figure of Joseph stood over them both, he could feel the stench of his rotting breath and somewhere in the back of his mind was the fear that the wretched thing might strike while Tomblin was preoccupied, before he’d a chance to even think of a way out. The remaining clan members, half a dozen or so Darren assessed, had emerged from their spot and began circling them. Lightning flashed its brightness into the semi darkness making it seem like a neon sign on overload, its effect increased by the glare of the oil lamp, as Tomblin, finding nothing amiss, began to retrace his steps.

Darren tried to keep his eyes on the girl despite the wildness around him, he didn’t know how much English she understood, perhaps none, but her physical development was normal. There was a chance she might understand.

He took a quick glance at Tomblin, who was returning at speed. He had only seconds to get his message across.

‘I’m not going to hurt you; I’m not going to do anything to you. Just trust me. Nod if you understand.’

But she didn’t nod, and Darren supposed she was either too frightened, or backward to do much of anything. Slowly, surrounded by malformed figures the like of which he’d never seen, amidst the cacophony of their shrieks, the wind and the thunder, Darren slowly unbuttoned his jeans. He took the girl in his arms, sinking slowly with her to the ground. The girl began to writhe and scream.