Chapter 3
3. Past, Present & Future
“Good morning. And what might you be doing today?” Sarah asked.
“Good morning to you, too,” Ralph answered kissing her on the cheek. “I thought I’d go into town and buy something special for my lovely wife, something that you’ve always wanted, but with me being such a hard person to live with lately I’ve never got around to getting.”
Overjoyed by her husband’s decision for the day, Sarah gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek.
“What about you my dear, what do you want to do today?” He asked with a warm, calm smile.
“Well,” she said walking over to the percolator and pouring two freshly made coffees. “I’m going to get into those books you were talking about, since you are feeling much better in yourself this morning than last night. You do still remember where you put the other books, don’t you?”
Raising a poised finger in the air as an indication he would be gone for a minute or two, Ralph disappeared out of the kitchen and upstairs to the walk in loft room that they had converted only the year before. When he returned Sarah’s face lit up brighter than a Christmas tree, as from behind her husband’s back he produced the very first volume of “Severed Ties”. Holding out the limited edition leather bound book, she reached out for it while beaming a wide smile.
“Now, I don’t want you becoming too engrossed in these, love, because believe me when I say, I’ve read a lot of thrilling, heart-thumping, breath-taking and stomach churning novels in my time. This book, no matter how many times I tried to put it down, it was just near impossible until I had read it from cover to cover.” Ralph explained his reading experience with the book’s volumes.
Handing the book over to the anxious Sarah, Ralph gave her an affectionate kiss before going to the bathroom for a shower. Closing the door and resting against the fancy marble wash basin to look at himself in the mirror in front of him, Ralph exhaled hard before rubbing both hands down his face.
“What are you doing, Ralph?” A familiar voice asked.
Seeing nobody’s reflection in the mirror he turned around quickly to see where the voice was coming from, and it was at this moment Ralph jumped back with a startled look upon his face. It was Stone, the one person he never considered seeing again.
“You don’t exist! You are a figment of my imagination! You don’t exist!” Ralph gasped while stepping away from the evil looking man before him.
“Come on Ralph, what in the hell are you saying? I’m standing right here looking at you feeling sorry for yourself, wondering when your madness is going to end and, of how you can cure the low depressive state you call life. I think, therefore I am! I exist in matter, whether it is of this world or of the next my existence will allow my legend to go on. The question is Ralph, are you real or are you a figment of my imagination that I’ve never got around to figuring out yet?”
Walking slowly to the sturdy laundry basket to sit down, Ralph looked up at Stone’s serious looking facial expression. This was becoming a bad habit with this strange man appearing in his life without invitation or prior warning.
“Tell me something, Ralph, did you give my regards to Dr Jackson for me?”
“Fuck you, Stone!” Ralph cussed.
“Alright, so you tried to give him my regards, but you screwed it up and played the insane patient all night. I totally understand”
“I didn’t screw up. In all honesty to Sarah and me…”
“Ah, yes, the enchanting Sarah Freeman-Caine. I take it you’ve told her about our last encounter together? Have you told her that…I exist?”
Ralph returned to the sink, running the cold tap and lifting a soaked hand up to his face.
“If you are trying to gain some kind of fan club, Stone, you’re going the wrong way about it. So why don’t you just go to hell and leave me the fuck alone?” Ralph whispered calmly and softly.
Looking up from the sink Ralph was suddenly overwhelmed with relief, as he noticed that Stone had disappeared. Finally, he thought that he was free from his hindering. Checking around one more time to make sure that he was gone and that he wasn’t hiding in the shower cubicle, or small sauna room at the back of the bathroom, he continued to get ready for a shower.
Inside the bedroom Sarah sat with her legs up on the bed, her back wedged comfortably against the soft white pillows that she had positioned upright in front of the headboard. She was more than comfortable laying there reading the thick leather bound book that Ralph had looked out for her, and, as her husband had already explained from his own experience of reading “Severed Ties”, it would be very hard to pause or put the book down, even for a second.
Having become engrossed within the pages and story of the book, Sarah was building up a picture in her mind of each character, of each location, and each mood that those characters were expressing. In her mind’s eye, she was there; the taste’s, smell’s, feeling’s, emotions and experiences. Everything that Sarah read, she saw before her quite vividly in her mind’s eye. To her, she was inside the story, she was no longer a reader witnessing the writings of the great author’s history segment in life, Sarah had fallen inside a dream-like fantasy, though she was neither in any form of trance, or in a dream state. Subconsciously aware that something was wrong she turned her head weakly to the left to see a very young Joshua Critchly: His muscular arms and torso could be seen through the tight clinging white shirt that hung down, hanging out past his flannel trousers. His face was as she had envisaged; smooth tanned skin, slight facial stubble growth, short but thick side burns that emerged from his short black hair. Sarah was enchanted by his smile.
“Joshua!” She gasped anxiously.
“My Dear Sarah, why are you so alone?” He asked in a soft, almost hypnotic tone of voice.
Without realising it Sarah had entered a surreal place that existed only inside her mind. Her conscious state was no longer within the warm, safe confines of the bedroom, but deep inside a dreamy fantasy which had been created by some unnatural, unearthly force.
The book “Severed Ties” had drawn Sarah’s very soul from the normality of her reality, taking her essence into the very place, the very time of the Drew-Stanton’s and Joshua Critchly’s existence. From this moment of realisation, everything that she felt, smelt, heard and saw was almost certainly real. Physically and mentally, Sarah was inside Arthur Drew-Stanton’s home.
Having finished showering, Ralph felt refreshed and full of zest. Unaware of his wife’s mental, soulless absence from the real world, his exit from the house after dressing left her to the private world of Joshua Critchly, who asked Sarah to introduce herself.
Jumping into his car, Ralph pulled out of the driveway onto the main street and down into the nearby village. Once here he pulled up outside ‘New Styles’, one of the first shops to incorporate the new lines of leading international fashions, including jewellery, clothing, lingerie and adult sex aides, of which Ralph walked past sometimes with concealed laughter.
“Can I help you, Sir?” A young, very attractive girl from behind the counter called over to him.
“Err! Yes, I’m looking for a nice gift for my wife, something that will brighten up her day”
“No problem. Do you know her statistics, Sir?” She asked leading the way into the back of the store.
“Well, I have an idea of her size, but I have no idea what or how the measurements work. I’m sorry to be a nuisance,” Ralph apologised with an overwhelming embarrassed smile.
“That’s quite alright, Sir, you’re not the only one who has problems with numbers. Now, let’s see what we can do to solve this problem,” she smiled picking up a note pad and pen from a nearby seat. Put at ease with the young girl’s attitude, Ralph looked around the clothes rails at some of the dresses and tops which were to his taste. In fact, one dress in particular caught his eye; it was a dark blue evening dress that covered the ankles. The short, thin shoulder straps were double stitched to hold up the weighty length of the gown, something that Sarah would love to wear. The young assistant introduced herself as Angela, though he could call her Angel, as did all her friends.
“I think my wife would like this one,” Ralph announced pointing at the dress on the rail.
“You have a very good taste in clothing. This is the new line from Je Tem Fashions in Italy, only two hundred and ninety-five pounds,” Angela said taking the dress from the rail and holding it up into the light.
Taking his wallet from out of his back jeans pocket, Ralph flicked through the pile of twenty pound notes until he counted out three hundred pounds. Holding out the money for the young girl she stopped him, shaking her head back and forth before showing him the note pad notes.
“Because it’s designer, Sir, we have to get the measurements right” she explained to his confusion.
“Did I mention that this dress was to be a surprise gift?”
Angel laughed flirtatiously. “Don’t worry, Sir, your wife will have no idea of how you got to buy a beautiful designer dress without asking her leg, waist and bust size. Here at New Styles, we have ways of finding solutions on many problems, especially those where men come in to buy clothes for girlfriends, fiancés, wives, secretaries and lovers, you get the picture I’m sure?”
Ralph was starting to get the idea, but one thing was confusing to him.
“Is there a problem?” She asked.
“Not a problem as such, more of a question. How do you know for sure that it’s a garment for my wife and nobody else? I mean, a might have wanted to buy a whip, or a…a king Dong vibrat…My god! Is that thing safe?” Ralph gasped.
Angel looked around at all the sex aides on the shelves with a snigger. “Of course it is.” She replied.
Walking over and picking it up from the shelf she handed it to a red faced Ralph, who proceeded to push it away. It was by seeing the man’s reaction to this that Angel took it from the box.
“It’s our…Pardon the pun, biggest seller next to the ‘Tom Thumb Tickler’. Eighteen inches of pure throb and enjoyment with this big guy,” she boasted while teasingly rolling it between her hands.
“I’m sure it is, but how come they only sell those particular products in black latex? Why don’t they make white latex products of the same size? Surely this whole myth of black men having…”
“I totally agree. Do you know it’s a breath of fresh air having someone with the same opinions come in here now and again to put the record straight? A lot of women say that it’s a hand’s down argument, that all Afro-Caribbean men are very well hung. I know this to be a complete crock of shit! I mean, not that I’ve been…I mean, I haven’t…”
“Hey! It’s OK, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” Ralph said calming her down.
“I’m sorry I just don’t want to give you the wrong impression. It’s not that I’m racist or anything like that. I just prefer…the white skinned, blue eyed and soft sensitive type of man”
“I know what you mean. Anyway, I need to buy this dress and get back before tea time.”
Putting the sex aide back into its box and then back onto the shelf, Angel returned to Ralph with a slight blush, as she happened to notice a large bulge that had suddenly arose in his jeans. Trying not to stare at his zipper all the time, she picked up the notepad and pen that Ralph had moved from his chair before he sat down. Fanning herself briefly she commented on how very warm it was getting in the shop, before undoing the next button down on her skin tight white transparent blouse.
“I think we’ll do the waistline first. Is your wife slim, medium built or…”
“Slim, just like you. Not that I’m…not that I’m staring or anything,” Ralph said going all red with embarrassment.
“I wouldn’t mind if you were,” Angel giggled. “When you’ve worked in a place like this for more than two years, you get used to all the male customers looking out for a glimpse of cleavage. I remember one guy in particular, some rep for a Scandinavian porn company. He followed me around like a love sick puppy or something. He was touching my arse, rubbing my legs he even jumped at me and groped my tits, making the excuse that some customer had tripped him up. I blame my mother for all my troubles today.”
Ralph was puzzled by the young girl’s remark. “Your mother, why, does she work here, too?”
“No. I mean my breasts. My mother was into a thirty-eight double D bra at sixteen, which had all the wide boys chasing after her, not to mention the college tutors,” Angela replied with a long thoughtful giggle.
Ralph laughed along with the young assistant until finally the laughter subsided into an almost deafening silence.
“So, the waist will be something in the region of twenty-eight to thirty. What about the length?”
“The same as you, maybe a touch taller,” Ralph said looking at Angela’s legs.
“OK, and the most important of all, the bust size” she asked writing down the length.
“Ah, well, I’m not quite sure…”
Raising a poised finger in the air to Ralph, Angela walked over to the shop door and locked it before making her way back to Ralph with a strange expression on her face. Ralph took the note pad and pen from her hand as she slowly began to unbutton her transparent blouse, and before he could sound an objection to the woman’s actions, she had her large bare breasts on display.
“Would you mind passing me the dress, please.”
Not giving her time to ask again, Ralph took the designer dress in his trembling hands he passed it over to the half-naked shop assistant. Ravelling it up from hem to shoulder straps so that she could put it over her head, Ralph looked at her bare breasts dreamily, seeing that she had the largest brown nipples he had ever seen on a woman.
“What do you think?” She asked, suddenly turning to catch him looking at her chest.
“I…I think they’re nice,” Ralph stuttered.
“Not these! I was on about my mother passing on the size problem,” she said with an infectious giggle.
Ralph blushed with embarrassment before nodding. “Oh, right. Yes”
Though he felt uneasy with Angel taking her blouse off as if it was a natural thing to do, it was causing a reactive stir in his trousers. Ralph was turned on by the sight of her large exposed breasts, but more so with the size and darkness of her nipples. To him, Angel was beautiful, young and innocent looking. To Angel, Ralph was probably just another dumb customer who was highly excited to have seen more than a little bit of cleavage being displayed in front of him like this.
Within a couple of seconds she had the dress rolled over her head and down her curvaceous slim body to her ankles. The dress fitted her perfectly, every curve, every bump, it was as though it had been made especially for her.
“What do you think?”
“You…I mean, the dress looks absolutely fantastic, Angel. With a perm and manicure you’d look the perfect woman,” Ralph remarked.
Angel was flattered. “Thank you, Mr Freeman-Caine,” she replied with a wide smile.
“No. Thank you. OK, I’ll take…” Ralph suddenly felt a sense of guilt.
Behind them a clapping of hands grew louder and louder, until at last a man’s sound of laughter began to echo all around them.
“You really do amuse me, Caine,” Stone’s voice sounded out.
Turning around to face the arrogant looking Stone, Ralph laughed with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“What will it take to get rid of you from my life, Stone?”
“Do you know Ralph, may I call you Ralph?”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders with an uncaring gesture.
“Well, Ralph, I’m glad you’ve asked me that, because during our time together I have had no time or opportunity to discuss that with you. As you’ll understand being a top lawyer and all, I am a very busy…”
“Anti-Christ!”
“Sticks and stones Ralph, sticks and stones,” Stone tutted.
“I wish I had some fucking sticks and stones now, I’d cave you’re…”
“Steady on there, Ralph, I know you think you’ve earned the right to hurt my feelings, but the truth is my friend, you’ve earned nothing. Now then, you asked what it will take to get me out of your life. The answer is not as easy as you’d think. Nothing is ever easy in the time that you live, breathe, eat or sleep. When hearts collide and you become one, love is born within each the two searching lonely souls,” Stone spoke softly and calmly.
“With all that power you’ve got, why don’t you just magic up whatever it is you want?”
Stone nodded his head angrily. “Oh, I have the power. To acquire that which I need, only white power can be used to guarantee my satisfaction, and I have only dark power Ralph” Stone made his claim.
Ralph was becoming impatient with the intruders’ riddles and puzzles. Turning his back to him and starting to walk away, Stone ordered him to stop where he was. Angel was becoming terrified.
“Please listen to him Mr Caine!” Angel begged him.
“Yes, Ralph, listen to me. If you don’t like what you hear, I’ll go away and leave you alone to your pathetic life. You have nothing to lose by hearing me out, have you?” Stone insisted.
Turning back quickly and rushing up to Stone, Ralph was stopped in his stride by Angel’s hand taking hold of his arm and pulling him toward her.
“Trust me if you refuse to listen to him he will kill me for your ignorance”
“Why would he kill you? Just because I don’t want to hear his stupid story, he’d murder you in cold blood?”
“Maybe it’s because he’s evil! Maybe it’s because he’s been downstairs for two thousand years and I haven’t exactly been his prize pupil, you know what I mean?”
Stone walked forward towards Ralph and Angel.
“Alright, Stone, you have my attention. Now, I’m in a hurry, my wife is at home waiting for me to return and that dress Angel’s wearing is my present as a way of an apology to her because of you and your games. So, come on let’s hear this story of your great need that black magic power can’t get you.”
Giving Angel a thankful smile, Stone asked her to leave them alone in the back room of the shop for a while. Inviting Ralph to take a seat, Stone then began to explain his reasons for harassing him for all this time, but under the condition that he swore his silence of saying nothing to anybody, not even Sarah.
“One other thing, Ralph, I need you to say those three little words for me!”
“Fuck no!” Ralph gasped with anger in his voice. “You just never give up, do you Stone?”
“Do you really think that I’d try and trick you into saying those words Ralph? All I have to do is summon you, but, as you want to know what I want from you, the only way is for you to say the words. I know you don’t trust me, and who’d blame you? Just say the words Ralph, come with me and I’ll explain everything and then you can return to your wife.” Stone reassured him.
Ralph felt uneasy about the whole thing. So far, Stone had tricked him into everything he’d rather have stayed out of; the alternate Seacliffe, dragging him into Dante’s Inferno and invading his personal life by appearing out of nowhere. On the whole, Ralph’s life had been turned upside down, and the recurring, painful flashbacks of his brothers’ bloody body being found was the icing on the cake of dread.
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you, Stone, but you are the last person anyone sane in this world would trust. How do I know that you’ll let me come back here afterwards?”
“Ralph, let me tell you something. When I was water and carbon like you, my life was simple and easy going. My father had been killed in cold blood because he was a non-believer of the physical enforcers in our kingdom, and so, with my family fleeing for their own lives, the enforcers hunted us down like animals. I joined up with the resistance, hoping to find a place of sanctuary for me and my family, not that anyone was going to risk their own lives for the likes of us simple folk. Two days passed by until the first of my family were tracked down and stoned to death in Jericho, then, one day later I was surrounded by one hundred soldiers in the city that is now called Cairo. After three days of continuous torture and fifteen days of starvation, I was finally brainwashed into believing that my mother had betrayed me to the General and his army, before being stoned to death in front of six thousand people. So, being full of anger, rage and bitterness in my heart I set out to avenge the hate that had brought me to my knees. Yes, I betrayed the son of Gideon O Dominica’s, the one person that I had grown to love and idolise. The whole affair was, I admit, one huge mistake. All right, you’ve read it all in the books, seen it acted out on the silver screen and watched it repeatedly on VHS until the cows come home. But, Ralph, what you don’t know about…what nobody knows about this is the time following my betrayal of, you know who, when I drove myself to death through deep, saddened guilt. I threw myself under the escaping caravan’s. The wheels of the first missed my neck but crushed my chest, until at last the second crushed my skull just like it would a melon. Let me tell you, Ralph, if you think heaven is a place of paradise, then think again! I mean, if it was so good up there, then why are people up there catching the midnight express down to my part of town? Murder, crime, corruption, shooting’s, genocide, everything that paradise detests but what my department loves and thrives on.”
Ralph was engrossed in the story that Stone was telling him. Listening to every word he spoke, Ralph began to experience a strange feeling in his heart and stomach. A sign of fear, or a sign of sympathy, but whatever it was that burned inside his body he knew he could not hurt him in any shape or form. Ralph knew, for some strange and unexplainable reason, Stone was no more a danger or threat than that of a simple townsman.
“Not all of us choose to kill, Stone!” Ralph spoke up suddenly.
“NO,” Stone said bowing his head to the ground, “not by choice, only by instruction.”
“And you, why do you kill, Stone? Is it by instruction or by choice?” Ralph asked in a dry tone.
Stone wasn’t impressed by Ralph’s statement or line of questioning.
“You really don’t care much about small talk, do you, Caine?”
“Small talk is for the imbeciles, Stone, not for people like me who have a real thirst for knowledge.”
Stone walked to the door of the room and opened it before pointing his finger over to Angel, who was stood behind the counter quietly cashing up the till.
“Do you find Angel attractive, Ralph?”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders. “She’s very pretty,” he replied with a brief open smile.
Stone called her over to him. “Angel was to be the next Miss World, until a very jealous boyfriend strangled her to death in a hotel bedroom. He was never found…Unfortunately, my department found Angela before the ambulance arrived at the scene. Since then, she has been a great pain in the arse to us all.”
“He loves me really, Mr Caine,” Angela laughed having crept quietly up to the room doorway.
“When you say, your department found her…”
“Yes,” Stone interrupted, “I can say with total honesty, that if the paramedics had arrived just forty-five seconds earlier, Angela would be rich, famous and looking more beautiful as we speak.”
Angel stood by Stone’s side looking over at Ralph. “And what’s your story, Mr Caine?” She asked, half expecting an answer.
“What do you mean, what’s my story?”
“Well, how come you’re here? How did you…”
“OK Ralph, are you ready to find out what I want from you?” Stone interrupted.
Finally, Ralph felt more at ease, but at the same time he felt afraid as to what Stone was about to reveal to him. It was right then that Ralph experienced a painful tugging sensation on his heart, it was a fast building, sharp jagged pain at first, which suddenly exploded with intense, unbearable agonising pain. As Ralph grasped at his chest tightly and fell to his knees on the floor, Stone and Angel rushed to his aid with very concerned looks on their faces.
“Oh no not again,” Ralph gasped falling into unconsciousness.
“What’s happening to him?” Angel screamed at a confused looking Stone.
“Ralph, listen to me very carefully. Say the words, Ralph, say the words now. It will spare you the pain of the outer world.”
Ralph realised that maybe this time it was nothing to do with Stone and gasped for a breath of air before weakly forcing the words out of his mouth.
“What of…What of…!”
“Yes, Ralph,” Stone said encouraging him.
“What of tom…tomor…tomorrow,” Ralph said finally.
With a soft pat on the back by Stone, Ralph felt a growing tingling sensation shooting through his body as the whole room began to glow bright, then it distorted and finally disappeared into blackness. And, unlike the previous experiences before, Ralph Freeman-Caine’s presence was of a more uneasy feeling. This time the place was cold, dark, lonely and eerie.
“Hello. Is there anybody there?” He called out into the darkness.
Realising the troubled feeling’s he was experiencing before coming into this unknown place, he quickly began checking his chest with a series of rushed rubs and prods.
“What the fuck is happening to me?” He whispered to himself.
Looking at his feet with a strained squint, he managed to make out the figure of what looked like a trail of stones, pebbles and some type of gravel. Eventually, the more he looked down at this trail-like pathway, the more he could move forward…But to where?
Caine had been walking for at least an hour before eventually stopping. He was now in a state of accelerated panic, stress, frustration and terror; panic from the darkness, stress from the silence and terror from the unknown beyond – the silence and darkness. Though all these feelings were of actual experiences to him, there were no direct physical effects. There was nothing within them which ran a risk of danger, fatality, or anything else that would result in any such life threatening outcome.
As Caine’s heart started beating faster and harder inside his chest, one of the brightest bursts of light he’d ever seen exploded all around him. Now he could see the ground clearly, as he could his entire surrounding’s that were now visible. Now he knew exactly where he was.
“Caine, Ralph Caine! Is that you?” A rough sounding voice called out.
Turning to quickly face the voice, Caine’s eyes suddenly lit up with both surprise and relief.
“Marvin Poyndexter!” He gasped.
“My god, it is you!” The man cried out.
Grabbing hold of one another by the arms, each in turn looked around with extreme caution.
“What in the hell’s going on Marvin?” Caine demanded, hoping that he knew something about this place they were in.
“Hell’s the word for IT, Ralph! Come on, we’ve got to get out of here before they come. If we don’t find shelter now or you, me and this entire place will become the soul property of…Oh, I’m sorry. I do keep going on, don’t I?” Poyndexter apologised with a nervous smile.
Tapping Caine on the shoulder he ushered him into a nearby small building, where once inside he checked the windows by looking outside, before walking up to Ralph was looking a little scared.
“What’s happening outside, Marvin?” Caine’s voice trembled.
“They have all multiplied, my friend! The thousands of wandering soul’s that walked around here, all of them are dead. They killed them! Ate and mutilated them all! There are only a few of us left now, we have to stick together.”
Poyndexter was making no sense at all. He was beginning to show the signs of some old babbling fool, some terrified man whose mind had been shaken, twisted, chewed up and spat out by an invisible entity. Of course, Caine was now terrified, too, insecure but all too willing to fight if it meant him staying alive long enough to escape this place.
Looking over to the window and seeing the changing coloured sky, Ralph remembered back to the first time he’d seen the rolling, changing colours that brought in the unearthly sunrise. Without realising it he started repeating that, oh so simple phrase out loud.
“The sunrise is real.”
“Of course it isn’t real! Nothing in this…this world is real, Ralph,” Marvin cried out shaking his by the arms.
“Wh…! What?”
“The sunrise Ralph, you asked me if it was real, and, I’m telling you, it isn’t. Nothing here is real. You have to pull yourself together and help me”
“It isn’t real!” Ralph gasped rubbing his fingers through his damp, sweaty hair.
Poyndexter immediately lost his temper, seeing that Ralph was in some kind of trance-like stupor.
“Caine, Christ almighty, Caine, snap out of it, man. Everything you see in this place from now on, I want you to ignore it the best you can. Will it from your mind, try and focus on something solid, try and…”
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” Ralph shouted out with rage.
Quickly putting a hand over Ralph’s mouth to muffle his loud booming voice, Marvin hushed him with a single finger to his lips. “We must be very quiet, Ralph,” he whispered.
“Is all this something to do with Stone?”
Poyndexters’ eyes fluttered nervously, irregular and showing instant fear.
“How…How do you know Stone? Have you seen him here, Ralph?”
“He made me come here. He comes to me when I am awake, when I’m asleep. When I start to think that life is on the mend he turns up and ruins my fucking day. Tell me, is he something to do with all this that’s going on here?” Ralph spoke dreamily.
“He’s the Black Prince, the unholy serpent from the garden of Eden. Stone is the Devil, the Prince of Darkness, enemy of light, the abomina…”
“I get the message, Marvin! What I want to know is where he is right about now? Is all of this his doing?”
Poyndexter was in some way confused about Caine’s behaviour, and about his reaction about the description of Stone. Ralph had become quite tired looking all of a sudden.
“When I was younger, eleven or twelve, I was involved in a horrific crash that killed all my family, my brother, my sister, my mother and father. Since then, my days have been tiring, my nights haunting. Each time I close my eyes he would be there, offering me a solution to my pain and in many instances, I actually thought about giving in,” Marvin told Caine exhaustively.
“I take by He, you mean Stone?” Caine whispered.
“Stone, yes! He hounded me, just like he’s hounding you in the real waking world. Everywhere I turned he was stood there, tempting me, tricking me to take his road and not that of my own. When I was brought to this place I always wondered what the fuck was happening to me, to my body, and especially my mind. Oh, I tried to explain everything to a psychiatrist, a Doctor Jackson, from England. He was no good he told me that it was all caused by my traumatic experience through the accident, that my sleeping patterns were somehow being interrupted. When I mentioned Stone and attempted to prove this place existed, Doctor Jackson…”
“He shat himself, didn’t he?” Caine interrupted right on queue.
“And then some! He gave me a month’s supply of the strongest sleeping tablets on the market, before running out of my house like a bat out of hell. I tell you, it was as though the Devil himself was biting on his ass.”
Ralph felt the presence of some evil entity. The story of Doctor Jackson that Marvin had told was beginning to fit into all the right places of Caine’s mentally logged jigsaw. One of the main problems in his life at the moment was that which both men shared. All the same, Caine was in two minds on whether or not to mention his own connection with Doctor Jackson. Something he had to make clear to Marvin Poyndexter was that of his own story of tragic loss, and only then could they work out this nightmare.
Meanwhile, Sarah Freeman-Caine was being tended to by Arthur Drew-Stanton.
“My daughter failed to mention we were having guests, especially someone as radiant and beautiful.” Mr Drew-Stanton called out from the bedroom doorway.
Joshua Critchly stepped quickly and quietly back into the shadowy confines of the back bedroom wall, while Sarah rose slowly to her feet and approached the home owner, stopping him from entering the room. Introducing herself to Mr Drew-Stanton, Sarah took him by the arm and guided him gradually down the dim lit hallway.
“I was passing by and thought I’d drop in to see my old college friend, Alice, before I go overseas in a couple of days’ time,” Sarah declared from the top of her head.
Mr Drew-Stanton was infatuated by Sarah’s beauty, her soft spoken voice and her milky white complexion. In his mind he wanted her.
“Have you had dinner, my dear?” He asked softly.
“No. No, I haven’t. I was about to…”
“Then you must have dinner with me, now, tonight!” Mr Drew-Stanton spoke out impulsively.
Allowing Sarah no time to object he led her quickly downstairs into the dining hall, where once she here he lowered her gently onto a tall black chair. Shifting around her with eagerness, Mr Drew-Stanton made himself comfortable next to her in the chair closest. It was now that he called the Head Butler, Harry Newsome.
“This is a fantastic house, Mr Drew-Stanton, totally breath taking,” Sarah remarked.
“House my dear! This is one of England’s most historical buildings, which I must say before you fall in love with it, I am not selling,” he declared with a shallow burst of laughter.
Sarah was amused by the middle aged man’s sense of humour, but also unaware of the reason behind his sudden statement relating to the building. Losing the moment to question him the butler entered the room and Mr Drew-Stanton excused himself for a moment from the table.
“Now then, Harry, my very young guest and I, would like something specially prepared from the banquet menu. Can we have a bottle of sweet red from the cellar, too, chilled and aired for fifteen minutes, please?”
Harry acknowledged his master’s wishes, and then left them alone so that he could prepare the food and look out the bottle of wine.
“So, Miss Freeman-Caine, may I ask what area of business you are in?” He enquired.
Sarah hesitated for a moment, knowing that if she revealed the nature of her work in the real world, the moment would become filled with too many complicated questions.
“Media, mostly…”
“Media indeed” He exclaimed with a puzzled look.
“Well, newspaper columnist! I’m a reporter for The Herald Newspaper Group,” she gasped.
Mr Drew-Stanton laughed out. “Oh, don’t be so nervous, Miss Freeman-Caine! There’s nothing wrong with living by the pen. As they say: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’, don’t they?”
Relieved by the fact that she hadn’t jeopardised her position, Sarah sighed quietly to herself. But suddenly feeling uncomfortable, she began praying in her mind for some miracle to fall from the sky and save this awkward moment of unsettlement. And, a few minutes later, the prayer was answered in the form of Miss Alice Drew-Stanton walking through the dining room door straight up to her father.
“Hello, Daddy”
“Ah, here she is, my wonderful baby daughter”
“Hello, Alice!” Sarah greeted calmly.
Mr Drew-Stanton glanced from one to the other, before realising something odd was going on. He noticed that Alice didn’t recognise Sarah, but, it was Sarah who had the advantage.
“May I ask who you may be?” Alice enquired.
“I’m…”
“This is an old friend of mine from London, Alice,” he intervened.
Sarah was speechless. Here she was an intruder in these people’s home, far away from her own home, far away from the familiar people of her own kind. So how did Sarah have the advantage? Simple, she was reading the one book that through many legends and myths had become more than just a book for reading. But in all honesty to herself, she knew that eventually, and, sooner, rather than later she had to give it back to her husband.
“She doesn’t look that old to me,” Alice whispered sarcastically.
“Oh my, what a very observant daughter you have, Arthur,” Sarah said dryly.
“OK, Alice, Sarah, why don’t we all sit down and try and get on with one another? Harry is preparing dinner so I’ll just pop down to the kitchens and inform him that you’re home my dear.”
Excusing himself from the table, Mr Drew-Stanton left the room to go see the butler downstairs. As for Sarah and Alice, they sat for the best of thirty seconds exchanging dirty looks at each other, before Alice finally decided to break the uncomfortable silence that had totally engulfed the whole room.
“How long have you known my father?”
“Oh, I don’t really know exactly! It feels like a life time,” Sarah answered avoiding eye contact as much as she could.
“Quite. So, what brings you up here, Miss…?” Alice probed.
“Mrs Freeman-Caine, I’m a reporter for The Herald Newspaper Group. Is there something I should know Alice?” Sarah asked angrily.
Alice glared coldly at her. “Yes. Yes, there is something you should know Mrs Freeman-Caine, and that is, that my father doesn’t need some pig-tailed gold digger to betray his trust. “I just can’t believe Lord Hutton has stooped so low as to hire some northern-whore to talk my father into selling everything he owns, especially someone as obvious looking as you. You‘re not fooling anyone, you know! I saw right through you as soon as I walked through the door.”
Sarah’s heart skipped a beat; her throat became swollen with baited breath as suddenly her mind refused to answer her subconscious questions. She was no longer in a situation of control, and she was no longer able to keep up with the charade, nor able to hold back her emotions.
“Who are you…really?” Alice asked coldly, staring Sarah right in the eye.
“I’m…I’m Sarah Freeman-Caine, a reporter from The London Herald and you…”
“No, Mrs Freeman-Caine, you misunderstand me! What I wish to know is who are you really? Your accent and the way that you dress tell me that you aren’t from around here, that’s for sure.”
Suddenly Sarah realised what it was Alice Drew-Stanton was actually asking her. And, in some momentary lapse of sanity in her confused mind, she actually wanted to reveal everything; about exactly who she was, about her husband, Ralph, about her real life and about the book that she was reading that somehow brought her into this surreal world. Looking around at the many alcoves’ that surrounded the two women, Sarah’s eyes were drawn to the boyish smile of Mr Critchly.
“Do you know, Alice, you’re absolutely right! I was brought here for a reason,”
“So, Lord Hutton did hire you to convince my father to sell everything?”
Sarah laughed. “You really are a spoilt little bitch, aren’t you?”
“That appears to be dinner all sorted out for us,” Arthur called as he walked back through the door into the room and made his way to the table.
“I’m sorry, were you both having a private conversation?”
Sarah and Alice looked at one another coldly before Alice nodded her head slowly. “We were just talking about Mrs Freeman-Caine’s work”
“And what did you conclude in your little interrogation of my guest, dear, darling daughter?” Arthur asked with a quickened smile.
Alice took one last look at Sarah, then rose to her feet and approached her father. Sarah looked away from the host and his daughter for a moment while she looked back toward the alcove to where Critchly was last stood, but he was no longer there, he had moved away from Sarah’s sight.
“My dear father, I can’t leave you half a day without some devious whore coming in here and trying to turn your mind against everything you believe in, can I?” Alice rasped.
Her father paused for a moment as though caught within the thought that his daughter behaved like this every time a female, whether friend or not entered the house to see him.
“Oh, sweet Alice, you are always here to save me from all those nasty people you believe are out to get us all. Unfortunately, your sudden urge to come back here and find me with a very beautiful female guest who you believe to be from Lord Hutton, is in fact the woman she claims to be,” he informed his now furious but puzzled looking daughter.
Alice couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her father. To her, her father was protecting Sarah, who was claiming to be from some so-called London Newspaper Group.
“You can prove that, can you? Have you been shown the evidence to back up her story, Father?”
Mr Drew-Stanton became quickly annoyed by his daughters’ tone.
“Alice! Please, don’t be like this or I will have no choice but to send you to your room and make you stay there until you can hold that tempered tongue of yours. Now, apologise to Mrs Freeman-Caine.”
“But, Father!”
“Do I have to repeat myself in my own house, Alice? Now, obey my wishes or go to your room, please.”
Stopping herself from crying out in anger, Alice turned and rushed out of the room, stamping hard up the long, wide stairs to her bedroom. Having recurring thoughts of how to kill Sarah before she could turn her father against her and sell the house, Alice was suddenly confronted by the very cheeky Joshua Critchly, who appeared from out of the shadows with a wide smile.
“Alice, my dear, dear darling,” he whispered softly.
“Joshua,” she gasped before rushing over to him with open arms. “You came. I knew in my heart that you would.”
“I came because my yearning for love is burning within my loins, not within my heart.”
Hearing his words Alice took a step back and slapped him hard across the face. “You really do infuriate me, Joshua, but at this moment in time, I too, feel as horny as you do. So, my advice to you is, take me to your room and sooth your burning passion,” Alice ordered.
Lifting her up off of her feet and carrying her to the bedroom, Joshua threw her down onto the soft four poster bed, he, too, joining her by her side.
Downstairs Arthur and Sarah sat quietly while Harry put down their meals ceremoniously in front of them, not once making eye contact with either the two until he had finished the job of serving.
“I would like to thank you, Mr Drew-Stanton, for standing up for me like that. I know that Alice can be something of a handful sometimes, especially when she’s deeply in love.”
Arthur looked confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand!”
“That’s what you said about the phone call from…”
Becoming distracted from Mr Drew-Stanton’s blank looking face, Sarah saw Critchly suddenly gazing down at her from the balcony above. Nodding his head from side to side he placed a steady finger to his lips and smiled. Seeing his confident, happy look, her heart began to race.
“Are you alright, Mrs Caine? You look awfully pale,” Mr Drew-Stanton commented.
Attempting to make an alternative comment, Sarah found it hard to speak a word. Beginning to lose vision of the dining room, Mr Drew-Stanton, the plate of food, everything, like it had appeared, disappeared just as quickly. She had finally returned back home to the lonely bedroom of the empty house where she had first picked up the book to read.
“That was strange!” Sarah exclaimed, reaching out for the book, but to her dismay she found that it was no longer there on the bed or about the floor where it may have fallen.
“So, what you are saying is, Stone enters both the real world as well as this one. He told you that he betrayed…”
“Yes, he did! And he’s the Prince of Darkness and all that,” Ralph yelled.
Calming Ralph down with a gentle rub on his shoulder, Marvin became startled by a strange low noise coming from upstairs. Instructing Ralph to stay where he was, he made his way up the stairs and searched each room in turn by opening the door and creeping inside. The last door at the end of the hallway he walked inside but didn’t come back out.
“Marvin, be careful up there!” Ralph shouted up.
Not hearing anything after five minutes, Ralph became concerned about his friend’s long absence after entering the room.
“Marvin! Marvin! Hey, are you all right up there!” He cried.
Climbing the stairs cautiously by pulling himself along and up the banister, his heart pounded like a Jack Hammer set on over-drive. Each step that he took was followed by Ralph looking around himself, half expecting someone or something to appear before him. Again, he called out for Marvin, but again, his friend did not answer.
Within a couple of minutes he had reached the top of the stairs to stand outside the room where his friend had not returned from. Turning the door handle slowly he pushed open the door. Inside the room was empty, the floor uncarpeted, no curtains and no furniture at all.
“Marvin! Are you in here?” He called with a shaky voice.
“Yes, I’m here, Ralph” a voice filled with sadness answered.
Crouched down in the corner of the room Marvin tried holding back his sorrow of finding the bodies of a young couple laying side by side, both dressed in their wedding clothes and holding hands in a tight grip. Walking up to his distraught friend, Ralph placed a gentle hand upon his friends shoulder before crouching down and joining him by his side.
“Did you know them?” Ralph asked softly.
“Yes,” Marvin replied leaning over behind Ralph to take the discarded bed cover and place it over the two bodies, “I met them both a few hours before bumping into you that morning in the alleyway. His name is Desmond J. Ellis, and that was his wife, Angela Harris, both were married on the very moment of the new millennium. Poor bastards didn’t have a chance in hell!”
After covering the two bodies with the dusty bed sheet Marvin sprung to his feet with haste on hearing a strange sound coming from downstairs. When Ralph also heard the sound, he, too, jumped up onto his feet and made his way to the bedroom door.
“Wait here, Ralph, don’t leave this room until I come back,” Marvin ordered in a quiet voice.
Leaving the bedroom slowly and cautiously, Marvin walked to the top of the staircase and looked down into the hallway below. Seeing that there was nobody there he began quietly descending the stairs.
“Poyndexter” A voice called suddenly from the ground floor.
Looking down into the hallway Marvin’s eyes were met with those of an angry looking Stone.
“Stone, you evil bastard”
“Yes, Marvin, it’s me,” Stone replied coldly. “Where’s Ralph?”
“He’s gone to find help. He should be back very soon. He knew you were coming, Stone!”
Within seconds of Marvin stepping back up the few steps he had just walked down, Stone had appeared before him, now showing a satisfied smile on his face.
“How weak our children are when faced with the scent of death, Poyndexter. You look so afraid, and yet, you have the strongest soul in my whole collection. Now, where is Ralph Freeman-Caine?” Stone demanded in a deep tone.
“Fuck You, Stone!” Marvin cried, lunging forward to strike out at him.
Disappearing suddenly from the top of the staircase and reappearing at the bottom, Marvin’s heavy built body fell forward and crashed down each and every one of the stairs until finally hitting his shoulders and head on the hardened wooden floor below. Dazed by the fall he tried to focus at Stone’s unconcerned looking face staring down at him.
“It’s almost dark outside, Marvin, soon they’ll come and take away you’re…”
“Marvin! Stone! What the hell’s going on?” Ralph shouted suddenly appearing at the top of the stairs. Surprised by Ralph’s presence Stone stepped away from Marvin‘s sore, damaged body.
“Well, am I sure glad to see you, Ralph, I must have startled your friend here while he was coming down the stairs, and he…”
Stone knew by the way that Ralph was glaring at him that the tale was far from the truth, as he had stood and watched everything from the bedroom door. It was Stone who had tricked Marvin into falling down the stairs by forcing him to hit out in anger, and so lose his balance.
“Don’t…trust him…Ralph!” Marvin gasped out in pain.
“Oh, believe me, my friend, I don’t. Not anymore,” Ralph replied calmly.
“Now come on Ralph! It was an accident, that’s all it was,” Stone begged with panic.
Falling unconscious and looking like death, Marvin Poyndexters body faded away until finally it was as though he had never been there. Seeing this happen, Ralph was beginning to worry about his own well-being around Stone, and whether or not the same was in store for him.
“Are you happy now, Stone? I mean you’ve got rid of the only one person who was standing in your way, so do you know what? You can do whatever it is you’re going to do to me right now. But know this…”
“If you must know, Ralph, I’m not happy now, or nor will I be without your help. You worry too much, Ralph, because Marvin isn’t dead! So get off your high horse and chill out, OK?”
Ralph didn’t know whether to believe the Nightmare Maker, or whether to try his best at ridding himself of the torment once and for all. One thing was for sure, if he could be sure that Marvin was still alive, then maybe his trust in Stone could be half salvaged, or at the least repairable.
“I’ve had enough of all your lies and deceit, Stone, the invasion of my dreams, nightmares, my life and everything else that you’ve put me and the others through these past week’s.” Ralph howled.
Stone suddenly looked guilty. “It’s been years, actually, Ralph.”
A cold chill shot up Ralph’s spine, which was brought on by Stone’s words that answered the question that he had burned in his mind for so long, the recurring nightmare of his brothers’ mutilated body that he had found in the corn field. It wasn’t just recently that Stone had been victimising him, but throughout all his grieving life since Andrew’s death.
“It was…You’ve been…All this time…”
“When you found your brother’s remains you cried for hours. During that time of mourning, you wished it was you lying there instead of Andrew, and you said that you would give anything to take the place of your brother, which included exchanging your soul with the devil. I have been with you ever since, watching you, protecting you, even leading you down certain paths and roads. Believe me, Ralph, if I hadn’t have stepped in when I did, you would have been joining your brother a week later. Don’t get me wrong, I’d have had no objections to your committing suicide, I mean, the essence of each soul from a suicide comes to me and my department anyway. My intervention was the only thing that would have made you what you are today…”
“What, a mental and physical wreck! Is that your pride of achievement, Stone? What is it, huh! You get off on this shit?”
“No. I allowed you to become one of the best lawyers…sorry, solicitors that this country has ever had since Alan Carmichael, and now you’re telling me that you’re not grateful for that?”
Fed up of the continuous back stabbing, Ralph turned and walked away, leaving Stone on his own before he stormed out of the building into the new darkening sky above him.
“You better start treating me with more respect, Caine! It’s dark outside, and when it’s dark, they come out to feed. Did you hear me, Ralph?” Stone shouted out after him. In the few seconds wait he heard an almost silent “Fuck you”, which was most likely to have come back from Ralph. But Stone didn’t know. He didn’t rather much care at that moment in time, as he began to boil with angry rage at the situation.
Meanwhile, back at Ralph’s house, Sarah was preparing a late tea for herself and Ralph. Peeling the potatoes with a short bladed, self-sharpening chef’s knife, she lost her grip for just a second, driving the razor sharp blade deep into her palm. Feeling the metal cut into and through the soft flesh, Sarah noticed that no blood was appearing at all from the cut. A couple of seconds later, and without warning, the clean cut began squirting with thick, dark red blood, the pressure of her closed veins had now opened up to release a regular sequence of bloody jets, until finally, by taking hold of a clean, dry tea towel from the draining board, she pressed down on it hard enough to temporarily stop the bleeding.
“Bloody hell” she cursed, rushing to the sink and turning on the cold tap. Taking away the now heavily blood stained towel she placed her trembling hand under the cold running water, but not without giving out a loud, painful scream. Just then, with a surprised gasp a pair of hands that wrapped themselves around her waist and took hold of the injured hand gently.
“Oh, Ralph, what a relief you’re….!”
“Sarah my love,” Joshua’s voice whispered softly in her ear.
Without turning around to face him she leant her head back to rest upon his soft comforting chest.
“Joshua,” she whispered, allowing him to tend to her hand.
“There you are, my little passion wagon.”
Turning her head around slowly to look at him, Sarah was enchanted by Joshua’s seductive charms. She was now rendered powerless, unable to pull away from his gentle, caring touch over her trembling body.
“Does it feel any better?” Joshua asked with a smile.
Looking down at her hand she became slightly unsettled by the deep cut healing up before her eyes, but after a moment shrugged off the unnatural occurrence, as Joshua bent down to immediately cover her with random kisses on the lips. To many people Sarah would have been accused of being bewitched by the devil, but for Sarah, it was a simple release of all the built up pressure’s that had indeed mounted up over the weeks through Ralph’s problems and troubles with work and sleep. In Sarah’s mind it was escapism’s way.
“Please, Joshua, take me to bed.” Sarah heard herself say.
Without hesitation he lifted her off of her feet and carried her willing body upstairs and into the bedroom, putting her down gently onto the soft bed before suddenly scrambling backwards in horror at seeing the open pages of ‘Severed Ties’ lying on top of the duvet next to a puzzled looking Sarah, who sat up and rested upon her elbow’s to see the terrified look on Joshua’s face.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Is it me?”
Joshua didn’t answer her, he just stepped away from the bed and stared down at the open pages of the book, trembling, breathing hard and deeply. Sarah was so confused that she didn’t know what to do to help him.
“Joshua, please, you’re scaring me.”
Looking around himself in sheer panic he ran for the door, pulling it open he ran outside and across the short hallway, down the stairs and left the house before Sarah could even reach the bedroom door herself. She was confused as to what had caused Joshua’s sudden change in behaviour, especially in the middle of a heated, passionate moment which could have only stirred pleasurable anxiety, surely?
Returning to her room she sat down on the edge of the bed and thought about the moment she had just had.
Back in the land of the strange Ralph had decided to return to the building where Stone was last seen with Marvin, before finally deciding to take up and walk away.
“Stone, are you here, you son-of-a-bitch?”
“I’m here, Ralph. What do you want?”
Standing in the doorway looking into the room, Ralph began to give a short, sarcastic laugh. “What do I want?”
“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t know your hearing was impaired! Do you want me to…?”
“Die! Yes, I want you to die, you twisted, evil minded, perverted bastard! If at all that is possible?” Ralph interrupted suddenly.
Walking up to Ralph slowly, Stone hung his head low before looking up.
“Do you know something, Ralph? I have tried to be very patient with you. Even way back then, when your brother met his fate and you knelt down in that field sobbing your fucking heart out, I knew that there was at least an ounce of understanding in your body. There were so many things that I could have done to you, Ralph, like damning your soul to hell for all eternity, or signing you up for one final evil mission before burning you out of existence with a sudden heart attack. You think of anything painful that is both possible and impossible to experience, what is left is that of heaven compared to my wrath. So, let me ask you again, what do you want?”
Now Ralph was scared by the strange, angry tone in Stone’s voice, but all the same he had to be strong minded to be able to face up to this evil man from hell.
“Like I said before, I want you out of my life, forever,” Ralph answered.
Stone nodded his head in agreement. “OK, so what are we waiting for?”
Shrugging his shoulders and looking back with a blank look, Ralph stepped out of the building. Following him outside Stone stopped and pointed up into the darkened sky above them.
“I have always found the stars to be so beautiful from this world, unlike so many others I could mention, but won’t. I have always found mortal bonding so fascinating, so mysterious, and so strange at times. But above all, I find it so devastating to most weak hearts. For you, love is a puzzle box that is forever continuously changing its combinations and yet, you don’t care about that side of love which helps you progress, do you? No, you carry on in life until eventually the combination turns to rotate into place itself. Right down to business. I want what you have, Ralph! I want to be able to love a woman. I want to be able to let that puzzle box rotate and click into all of those right combinations and allow me perfect mortality. Are you ready, Ralph? Are you really ready?”
At that very moment while Stone laughed, the whole sky began exploding brightly with rainbow coloured lightning, both men’s bodies were raised up toward the stars, and at that very instant Ralph realised that he had been tricked into giving away the most precious thing in any human life – love. No amount of money could buy it from the person possessing it. In true reality there is no-one, except the one true owner of love who is able to give away their love for that of another.
Sarah’s misfortunes had only just begun with the broken heart of her dearest Ralph’s strange disappearance, the one mystery that was to haunt her every dream and each waking nightmare. On this occasion Stone had won.
