Stillborn XXIII (Henry)

XXIII

There was a moan from the entrance and Henry turned around once more to see two men, both dressed the same as all the other cultists, with a heavily pregnant woman supported between them.  She was half-undressed, her distended belly covered in swirls of drying blood that did not seem to be hers.  The rest of her clothing appeared fashionable, all warm, yet muted colours.  Traces of mascara ran down her cheeks.

She’s not one of them, he realised, but where did they find her?

The woman staggered forwards, legs apart apart, as contractions rocked her abdomen,  Her hands gripped the shoulders of the two men like claws.

“Welcome, Hazel,” the Priestess said and as Henry turned back to her he saw she wore an almost serene smile.  “I know you have been through a lot this evening, but you are in safe hands now.”

The woman - Hazel - continued forwards until she was just a few feet away from Henry’s pew, then, as a particularly powerful contraction hit her, she stumbled and the two men lost their grip on her.  She tumbled forwards, hands flying out in front of her in protective instinct and, equally instinctual, Henry found himself leaping out of his seat (barely noticing the pain in his hip as he did) and reaching out for her.

She turned in an instant.  One moment she was a pregnant woman imperilled by her fall, the next she was something like a beast, eyes screwed up tight above a snarling mouth; the one hand catching her weight on the stone floor of the Kirk even as the other swung through the air to slash at Henry with her nails.  He barely managed managed to get out of her way, falling backwards against his pew and feeling the pain in his hip suddenly flare into agony.

“Stay away from my baby,” Hazel shrieked, “stay away!” and despite the pain Henry found himself trying to huddle closer to the end of the pew, terrified.

The two men who had been supporting her were at her side immediately and she seemed suddenly subdued as they lifted her back to her feet and helped her on her way towards the Priestess, the communion table and the pool of blood.  But Henry had his own supporters and it was with incredible relief that he accepted Paige and Charlie’s help, one to grab each hand, to get him back onto his feet and into the pew.  By the time he had righted himself and rubbed away some of the pain he saw that the woman had made it to the edge of the pool of bloody wax.

“Hazel,” the Priestess said gently, “you have been chosen for the greatest of honours.”  She reached out and took each of Hazel’s hands from their resting places on the shoulders of the two men and held them, gently, supportively, in her own.  “You have been chosen to rebirth the Son of God.  Your womb has become a gateway to the celestial realms, a place most holy and sacred and soon, so soon, it will open and He who has been veiled in flesh once more shall arrive.  Then, this world will end and be replaced by something infinitely better: paradise, a new Eden, the final Heaven for those who believe.”  She brought her hands and Hazel’s down onto Hazel’s blood-smeared belly and smiled.  “Are you ready for this glorious burden, Hazel?”

“I am,” the woman replied and her voice sounded far-off now, as if she were reciting lines from within a dream.

But as she spoke those words Henry noticed that something had changed about the pool at their feet.  The candles were flickering wildly now and the liquid between them was rippling, bulging in several places near the centre and sending waves outward.  It was as hypnotic as it was awful.

What new horror is this? he asked himself, but it was the Priestess who answered.

“Behold,” she said, letting go of Hazel’s hands and taking a step away from the pool, even as a gnarled, blood-soaked hand emerged from within, “the midwife of the Lord.”

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Stillborn XXII (Paige)

XXII

Paige was terrified.  Of all the things they had seen and experienced this night, nothing compared to the ritual she was witnessing now.  All the monsters of night and mist, of memory and recrimination, had nothing, nothing at all, on this congregation of pale, dark humans.  There were so many of them, all dressed the same, all with the same solemn expressions, all praying the same ancient words in the same dull tones.  It had been decades since she had last been in a church, but that church, she knew instinctively, had been alive and thriving.  This, however, was a church of death and it seemed easier to understand, in the light of all she had witnessed, that the monsters were real, that the town was empty, that her life had become a nightmare of unimaginable proportions, than that these people were ready to worship the cause of it all, that they had willed it and prayed for it for generations, that, in the depths of their souls, this seemed to them like paradise.

And then she began to wonder.  She looked around at the faces as they muttered their prayers, listened to the buzz of their liturgy, and wondered, did they all really want this?  Did they all really believe?  Where there perhaps many here who, in the throws of their day job and the business of family life, never gave a thought to St. Margaret and the second coming she was supposed to birth?  Could it be that this was just like any other religion, its adherents part fervent, part nominal.  And what then?  What of those who never really prayed for this moment?  What must they make of it now?  Some, no doubt had been shocked into faith once more, but the others, were they hoping for a way out?

She kept scanning the faces until she found the one that told the story she expected.  A young woman, sitting dutifully beside her husband and children, eyes wide open with terror, staring back at her, for just a second, like a timid beast trapped in the headlights of a car.  For that one second, it seemed, volumes passed between them, of all the obligations and regret, the rituals that had become nothing suddenly meaning everything, the fear, the fear, the fear.  And then the young woman looked away, staring down at her hands like all the rest, her lips moving all but silent.

Remember that I have commanded you… She couldn’t fear, not like that woman, not like the others she knew there must be in that terrible congregation.  She must not fear because she was not one of them, because she had a choice and it was very possible that she could choose to hope.  ...be strong and courageous…  She could choose a different path, not to merely give in to the end, but to fight it and to remember that she was not alone, as that woman had seemed, though she was surrounded by others like her, but that ...the Lord your God is with you…

Can I choose that?  God?  Can I really?  She just didn’t feel ready, didn’t feel like she could take that leap and yet… and yet what else is there?  This ritual?  This death?  She had never wanted to believe so much in her whole life, but something was still stopping her.  What was it Henry had said?  He couldn’t believe in a God who would let this all happen.  Can I?

Her thoughts were cut short as the prayers around her ended with a sung, disharmonious, amen.  The priestess raised her hands and gestured to the square made by the candles at her feet.  Paige looked down to where she was pointing and was horrified to see that the bloody wax, which had been melting since they were first lit, had now formed a pool, exactly the size and shape of that square.  It was impossibly dark and red, its surface a sickly shine reflecting the candles all around.

“The time has come,” the Priestess said, “bring in the Surrogate.”

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Stillborn XX - XXI (Henry, Charlie)

XX

Henry shuddered as he passed through the side door and into the sanctuary of the kirk. It had been quite a long time since he had last stepped inside a church, and never had he done so in nothing but a hospital gown, but he was pretty sure that it was not supposed to be accompanied by a palpable sense of doom. It was like a tightening in his skin, a sudden weight to the air. He heard Paige gasp as she entered just a split second behind him and knew she was feeling the same thing.

“It’s okay,” he said, more to fill the suddenly oppressive, echoing silence as to offer any meaningful reassurance. “It’s okay,” he said again.

The sanctuary was pretty large, and though the floor space was mostly taken up with fixed pews, the space above seemed cavernous. Candles, hundreds of them, provided the only light, but they didn’t seem to touch the darkness above. There was a sense that this really was an ancient place and that even more ancient forces were at work in it.

“Take a seat,” the girl said, gesturing towards the nearest of the pews. Charlie stared, wide-eyed as always, by her side. There was no telling what was going on in his head.

Henry glanced at the pews, remembering the times as a boy he had run through the aisles of his father’s church, ducking in and out of the rows of fixed furniture. More innocent times, he thought. However did it come to this?

“Are you just going to stare at them, old man, or do you plan on actually listening to what I’m saying?” the girl demanded, giving Charlie’s arm another sharp yank - making him yelp once again - just to make her point.

“Okay, okay,” he said, sidling into the second row. Here, more than ever before, he wanted that empty first pew as a barrier.

Paige shuffled in beside him, never taking her eyes off the terrified boy. It was, perhaps, little more than a reflex when Henry put his arm around her, but she gave him a grateful look nonetheless.  Clara gave a grunt of satisfaction, then threw Charlie towards them so that he landed, like a puppet with no strings, to drape across the front pew.  Henry saw Paige reach for him, but the boy righted himself and shook his head.

“Well,” the girl said, taking a step towards the candle-lit communion table at the front of the Sanctuary, “we’re all here at last, so I think it must be time to get things started.”

Four other figures seemed to peel out of the shadows, all wearing similar dark, almost puritanical clothing to Clara. Each help a black candle, unlit, before them as they approached with ceremonial slowness towards the table.

There was something odd about them, something off which Henry could not quite put his finger on. Something about the way they moved, perhaps, like they were characters in an old silent movie, with not enough frames to appear completely natural, or how they were dressed - similar, yes, but as he stared at the cut of each garment it seemed they could all have come from very different eras - or how he could not see any of their faces, only shadow.

“The elders of past days await us,” came a voice from behind. Henry felt Paige jump even as he did. He turned around and saw a procession of dark-clad people, men, women and children, each pale faced and solemn, marching into the Kirk through the side-door, led by a woman in a long robe, the priestess of this cult, no doubt. It was she who had spoken and she continued her liturgy as the procession approached the table. “They hold their candles ready to be lit anew, ready to let in the light of truth, ready to spill the blood of our ancient covenant.”

The majority of the figures left the aisle and found a space in the pews - Clara now amongst them - while the priestess made her way, so painfully slowly, towards the table and the four ‘elders’. She took a taper, lit it on one of the candles on the communion table and then lit each of the four black candles in turn and now, Henry could see, they were not black at all, but the dark brown of congealed blood, blood which beaded beneath the flame to spill in rivulets down the sides. Each of the elders took their candle as it was lit and placed them at the four corners of a square before the table then, their role apparently complete, they vanished entirely.

The Priestess bowed her head and began to pray in Latin and the congregation, Henry, Paige and Charlie excluded, prayed with her.

XXI

Charlie felt as if he inhabited two worlds at once. There was the world of darkness, the world that he could see all around him, could hear in the chant of the cultists, could feel chilling his skin, could smell in the smoke and tallow and iron. But there was another world beyond all these senses, one that illumined him from within, which made him feel safe despite his circumstances, bold despite his fears and pure despite the evil he was witnessing. He straddled both worlds, but it seemed that he could draw strength from the inner world to face the outer, to bathe in the warmth and the light and brave the cold.

But what do I need to do? he asked, knowing that it was God, his guide, who gave the light and God, his protector to whom he spoke.

At first it seemed there was no answer, and then he realised that there had been one after all. It was simple, could be expressed in a single word, though God had chosen to use none: wait.

I will wait then, he thought and the light seemed to grow a little more within him.

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Stillborn XIX (Paige)

XIX - Paige

            “Let go of him!” Paige shouted, taking another couple of steps towards the young woman holding Charlie captive, “let go of him now!”

            “Or what?” the woman – girl, really – asked.  “You’re not really in any position to be making threats.  You know that, right?”

            “Who are you?” Henry asked, stepping forward to rejoin Paige.

            “Sorry, old man, but we don’t have time for introductions.  You’re wanted inside; after all, you’re the guests of honour!”

            “For what?” Paige asked, feeling the numbness of shock starting to set in.

            “For the birth of course!  It’s a joyous occasion and you get to help make it happen.  You should feel very privileged.”

            “So it really is happening,” Henry said, sounding older and more tired than ever before and yet also resigned, like after years of running he was finally letting the truth catch up to him.

            “You’re the minister aren’t you?” the girl asked, a hint of amused curiosity in her voice.  “The way I hear it your family has a lot to answer for, but the way you’ve been acting lately you might as well be one of us.  The heretic hounds haven’t been barking so loud in recent years!”  She laughed, then yanked Charlie’s arm upwards until the boy yelped.  “We’ve chatted enough,” she said, “you want the boy unharmed?  Then get inside. Now!”

            Charlie yelped again as the girl dragged him around towards a side door of the kirk and, as Paige watched on feeling utterly helpless, the twitching, almost-human monsters began to shuffle around behind them, forming a circle from which there could be no escape.

            “What do we do?” she whispered to Henry beside her, “What on Earth can we do?”

            “There’s only one thing to do,” the old man replied with a sigh, “we go in.”

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Stillborn XVIII (Henry)

XVIII - Henry

            They were truly everywhere.  Every direction Henry turned, there they were, advancing slowly, with menacing posture and a disturbing, unnatural gait.  As tired as he was, all Henry wanted to do was to run, but there was nowhere to go.  Every exit had been covered.  It’s all over, he thought.

            Then Charlie bolted, leaping away from Paige in an instant and running towards the gap between two of the monsters.  There wasn’t much room and Henry knew that he would surely not make it, but perhaps the boy could.  It felt like his heart had wedged itself in his throat as he watched in horror and hope.

            “Charlie!” Paige cried, but Henry remained silent, only watching and waiting for the outcome.

            The boy was fast and agile.  As one of the monsters lunged towards him he darted to the left, then almost immediately back right so as to weave between two of the creatures, and then suddenly, gloriously, he was free, vanishing into the fog even as the creatures turned to chase him.  And as they did that, the way became clear.

            “Paige,” Henry said firmly, “now!”

            He reached for her arm, grasping it as well as he could and then he began to run.  It was hard going and painful thanks to the blow he had taken to his hip and he was out of breath within seconds, but there was nothing else for it: they had to move.

            Paige had taken a moment to really move with him, stunned as she was by all that seemed to be happening, but now she was at his side and together they were making a beeline for the point where Charlie had disappeared, weaving through the fog to dodge the hideous creatures that stalked the Kirkyard, stumbling past graves and nearly tripping on some of the lower monuments.

            “Charlie?” Paige called out again, “Charlie, where are you?”

            They kept moving and all around them the mute night came alive with the moans and sighs of the monsters and their own heavy footfalls, but there was no sign of Charlie

            “Oh God, where is he?” Paige demanded as they stumbled to a momentary halt whilst Henry tried to catch his breath, “Where can he have got to?”

            “I… don’t… know…” was all Henry could manage, but he was scouring the darkness and fog around them, looking for some kind of clue, and then there it was: a light in the darkness.

            “Over there!” he said, pointing and then Paige was nearly dragging him forwards leading on towards the slight, flickering glow.

            It’s a candle or something, Henry thought as they approached it, but where would Charlie have gotten one of those?

            And then he saw that there was not one person by the flame, but two; one taller and one shorter.  Could it be Josh? he wondered, but as they got closer still he saw that, just on the edge of the candle’s tiny circle of light, there lingered the monsters they had been running away from, forming a crude semi-circle and waiting; twitching and waiting.

            They stumbled to a halt a few feet away from the figures and watched warily.

            “Charlie?” Paige asked one more time, “Is that you, Charlie?”

            The figures stepped forward and resolved into the boy and a young woman holding his arm in a tight grasp with one hand and the candle in the other.

            “He’s quite fine,” she said, “but time is running short and I’m running low on patience.”

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Stillborn XVII (Charlie)

XVII - Charlie

            Charlie led the way across the road and into the Kirkyard.  Paige and Henry followed behind him, hesitant and uncertain, but he knew that it was where they must go and that there it must all end.  The anticipation of that, of the nightmare, perhaps, being over, was almost enough to make him skip and he ran the last few steps into the Kirkyard, barely restraining a whoop of excitement.

            Once he was surrounded by grass and cold granite headstones, however, he felt a change in the atmosphere – something dark and oppressive.  His excitement fled and he stopped, shivering, waiting for the others to catch up.  He almost expected Paige to ask him what was wrong when she reached him standing there, all his exuberance gone in an instant, but instead she rushed over to him and enveloped him in a hug.

            “It’s going to be alright,” she said, though she was shivering now too, “everything’s going to be fine.”

            “This is the place alright,” Henry said coming up beside them and repressing a shudder, “I can feel it.  Don’t ask me how I can, but I can.”

            “I can feel it too,” Paige added.

            Charlie merely nodded, holding tight onto Paige.

            “Well then,” Henry continued, “I suppose we had better find a way inside.”

            He took a few steps forward, until his silhouette began to fade a little in the fog, then he turned back, gazing at his companions a moment before continuing.  Paige took Charlie’s hand and then they followed.

            Gravestones loomed out of a steadily thickening fog all around them, rising up like phantoms only to melt away as they were passed.  The ground felt unusually solid under their feet and when they stepped on a patch of grass it gave with an icy crunch.  Everything seemed to grow colder and more still.

            The Kirk itself was invisible to them now, though they knew it must be there, just a little way ahead, hidden in mist and darkness.  On any normal night it would be floodlit and the gateway to the Kirkyard from the high street side was lit too, though with an almost eerie glow created by a set of lights filtered green.  They had always left Charlie feeling a little wary around them, as if they were the glow from dead man’s candles, corpse light, but now he missed that glow, just as he missed the flood lighting and the ambience of streetlights and cosy apartment windows.  It was hard to believe that it had only been moments ago that he had been feeling hopeful, for now it seemed that this night must never end.

            A shadow moved off to the right and Charlie’s eyes darted to catch what it might have been, but no sooner had he looked one way than he had the impression of movement in the opposite direction.

            “What was that?” Paige asked, sounding frightened.

            “I don’t know,” Henry replied in a voice that said that he had seen it too, “but keep moving.”

            Charlie tried to obey, placing one foot steadily in front of the other when all he really wanted to do was to run, or freeze.  His body couldn’t decide which.  And more shadows seemed to appear in the fog everywhere he looked.  They were advancing  towards them, slowly, but with a strange, fidgeting sort of motion that sent an involuntary shiver down Charlie’s spine.

            “Oh god,” Paige said as one of them seemed to break through the wall of fog to appear fully before them, all charred, sticky flesh, faceless and familiar, “it’s one of them!”

            She began backing away when they felt a movement behind them.  Charlie wriggled free of Paige’s grasp to spin and see what it was, only to find more of the creatures advancing from behind.

            They were surrounded.

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Stillborn XVI (Josh)

XVI - Josh

Josh stepped carefully around the side of the great granite Kirk, all too conscious of the ice in the air and the graves beneath his feet.  He shivered at the caress of one, the thought of the other, and moved on, seeking a way in.

The Kirk was huge.  It and its ornamental Kirkyard, which fronted onto the High Street, dominated the city centre.  Its spire was thicker and taller than any of the other church spires in the city and its bulky sanctuary spoke of the power and the money of men as much as it did the power and the glory of God.  It was usually floodlit at night, its spire a granite knife to cut the dark Northern skies, but it was a great black shadow which Josh clung to as he navigated through the fog, avoiding the headstones and graven angels which loomed out of nothingness on his other side.

The main door to the sanctuary was locked, but that was little more than Josh had expected.  Clara and her friends didn’t seem the type to do things the easy way and certainly not the overt way.  There would be another way in, he knew, a side-door maybe, or something even less obvious than that and so he continued around the austere granite walls.  He found it on the other side of the Kirk, a small side-door, left slightly ajar, spilling soft, dim candle light out into the night.  The door creaked alarmingly as he opened it, then, instinctively checking that he wasn’t being watched, he stepped inside.

Josh had never been inside the Kirk before.  In truth, he had never stepped inside the doors of any church, except possibly for his christening, which he could hardly be held accountable for.  It was bigger than he had imagined, warmer too.  The chill from outside seemed to be held at bay by the flickering light of hundreds of candles which had been placed all around the sanctuary, turning its granite columns and monuments into living stone, always moving, always changing.  Great stained-glass windows depicted the apostles, though Josh didn’t know who they were.  Apart from their artfully rendered persons, however, the sanctuary seemed completely empty.

“Hello?” Josh called out.  “Is there anyone here?”

He scanned around once more, looking for any movement or another sign of where people might be found.

“Clara?” he tried. “It’s me, Josh.  Are you here?”

A face appeared in an alcove and Josh sighed with relief as he recognised her.

“There you are,” he said, taking a step towards her.

“Where are the others?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “You said you’d bring them!”

“They were all asleep and I… I just wanted to see you.”

“But you should have brought them!”

“I’m sure they’ll be along soon.  I think they were starting to suspect something, but they were still planning on heading here when they were ready.  Just give it some time, okay?”

Clara shook her head.  Josh was surprised by how upset she seemed.  He took another step towards her and reach out his hand.  To his surprise Clara grabbed it fiercely and dragged him into the alcove.

“You stupid boy,” she said once she had pulled him in close, “you better be right.”

She shoved him then, with surprising force and he found himself hurtling towards a dark hole he hadn’t seen before, then he was falling, down, down, into a chamber beneath the Kirk.  At first he yelped from surprise, but when he saw what awaited him at the bottom his shout quickly turned into a scream.

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Stillborn XV (Paige)

XV - Paige

 The fog didn’t seem so thick outside the department store.  It was still there, of course, rolling along the street, turning the buildings on the other side into monuments to shapelessness, but no longer did it seem so threatening.  There could be no fog monsters hidden within and for that she was profoundly grateful.  The air seemed colder, however, and she suppressed a shiver as she stepped out of the relative shelter of the store front and back onto James Street.

 “If this was any other night,” Henry said, glancing up at the sky they could not see, “I’d say it was going to snow.  Tonight?” he shrugged, “best not to think of it I suppose.”

 Paige nodded, then reached for Charlie’s hand as he walked past her.  The boy accepted the offer straight away and, as the cold seemed to set in to all of them, he huddled closer.

 “What’s the easiest way to the Kirk, then?” Paige asked, staring up at the shopping centre which marked the end of the street.  It was strange to see it at night without any lights on.  Strange and unsettling.

"Normally I'd say through the shopping centre, but I guess that isn't open tonight."

"We could break in," Paige suggested with a casual air that shocked even her.

"I think we've done enough vandalism for one night," Henry said with a grim smile, which shifted as he added, "unless we have no choice."

"So where, then?"

"Up past the centre by the multi-storey car park entrance, I guess, then the kirkyard is just across the road."

Paige nodded and let Henry walk ahead of her as she and Charlie followed, holding each other for all the warmth they could get.  It wasn't very far to the little service alley Henry had been referring too, and though they walked past the backs of shops and a bar not known for its salubrious nature, all was quiet.  Only the wind and the fog filled the silence.

The alley itself usually stank of urine, but the cold air seemed to have supressed that somewhat.  Paige had heard rumours that prostitutes liked to hang out there and so, in some ways, this strange deserted night was almost a blessing, but even so her eyes kept flickering into every alcove, waiting for something to jump out.

As it was the walk was uneventful.  The only terrors were imagined and so they emerged onto the next street safe, only colder and with hearts pounding from anticipation.  And there, across the empty road, lay the wrought iron fence of the kirkyard, the Kirk itself only a foggy shadow beyond, but they could clearly see one or two gravestones, ancient and ornate.

"So here we are," Paige found herself saying.

"Josh is here too," Charlie added, "and he's not alone."

"How does the boy know that?" Henry asked and Paige realised she had no answer.

But he does know, she thought, so who are we about to meet in there?

Stillborn XIV (Charlie)

XIV - Charlie

            Charlie was not dreaming.  His sleep was more peaceful than it had been in a long time.  Somehow, despite all the horrors he had seen that night, he felt safer than he ever had at home and his body had given in to the need for rest.  So, when a pair of soft, cool hands began to shake him awake, he resisted at first, rolling over as much as he could in the small space of the chair and squeezing his eyes shut until he drifted back to sleep.

            “Charlie.” It was Paige’s voice, he knew.

“Charlie?”  She sounded worried and that made him feel slightly guilty for not waking up for her, but the sleep he had just left was so much better, he lay still a while longer.

“Charlie!  Josh is missing, we have to go!”  That brought him round.  He sat upright, rubbed his eyes and stared straight at Paige’s panic-stricken face.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay, honey, but we need to get a move on if we’re going to find him.”

“I know where he is.”

“You.. you do?”  She looked like she didn’t believe him.

Behind her Henry was rising, very slowly, from his seat and saying, “The boy has known much more than that before now, so why not?”

It was strange to hear the old man talking so much sense.

“Besides,” Henry added, “I have a fair idea myself.”

Charlie gazed past Paige and studied the old man.  He examined his slightly stooped posture, his rumpled hospital gown, details which helped to make him a ridiculous figure, the same man who had denied the evidence of his senses for most of the evening.  But then he reached his eyes and man and boy stared at each other for what seemed a long time and Charlie realised that, in this one instance at least, they were completely on the same page.

“He’s gone to the Kirk,” Charlie said, looking at Paige once more, though he could see Henry nodding in the background.

“It makes sense.  He was suddenly very keen to get there after the factory and I don’t think he’d mentioned it once before then.  Plus he seemed to know things about the cult we hadn’t yet discussed with him.  There’s something going on with that boy, you mark my words, and it’s more than likely it’s all centred on that Kirk.”

“Then we’d better get going,” Paige said, standing up, “we were all sleeping, so who knows how long ago he left us.”

Henry rubbed his hip and Charlie felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“We can take our time,” he said, drawing the gaze of both adults, “dawn is a long way off yet.”

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Stillborn XIII (Paige)

XIII - Paige

            Paige was dreaming. 

She was standing in a corridor, all alone, with a decision to make.  There were bright lights in either direction, but the section of the corridor she was in was quite dark.  One way, she knew, led to her home, to her husband and to a normal life.  The other way led to a nightclub, or somewhere like that, filled with young men who would worship her.  She couldn’t remember how she had got there, or if she had come from one direction or the other, but she knew that didn’t really matter.  The decision, of course, was which way did she go now?

            Once upon a time it would have been an easy decision.  The comforts of home weren’t really comforts at all.  Her marriage with David had always been a bit rocky.  They didn’t communicate the way a married couple should and they ended up having fierce arguments over every little thing.  There were very few apologies and there was absolutely no room for forgiveness, at least, not from Paige at any rate.  David had taken her back after several affairs, after all, but even then, Paige suspected, he had never really forgiven her.  For him it was just easier to accept her back than to lose her, regardless of the emotional turmoil and the next string of arguments.

            No, there were no home comforts and the lights of the nightclub seemed so bright and colourful.  She thought of the men there, boys compared to her, really, and how they would have so much energy.  They would all be athletic, at the peak of their physical health, and so cocksure they would approach a woman like herself with no hesitation if it meant the chance of an easy lay.  She knew she was just an object to boys like that, to boys like Josh, and whilst that could never really satisfy her, it filled a gap, for a little while.

            It would have been a very easy choice once upon a time.

            But now it seemed there was something appealing about home.  She had begun to miss David during the course of the night and in the dream world her pangs had grown and grown and grown, until it felt like she was missing a part of herself.  The lights of the nightclub were just as bright as ever, but she felt shame when she thought of what went on there.  She needed to apologise, she realised.  She needed to be forgiven.

            It was not an easy decision, but she made it with one small step towards the light and the next step was a little lighter, as was the one after that and the one after that.  Soon she was walking with ease,  feeling lighter and unburdened and when the light before her resolved, not into her home, but into a church, she understood that that had been the point all-

            Paige woke up suddenly, not knowing why.  She was surrounded by the thick, velvety darkness of the department store, but her eyes were pretty well adjusted to the dark now and she could make out the lumpy shapes of Henry and Charlie on the other chairs in the room set.  She glanced over to where Josh had been sitting and saw nothing at all.

            “Josh?” she whispered, “Josh are you there?”

            There was no reply, but Henry began to stir across from her.

            “Huh?” he managed, then glanced over to Josh’s seat and added, “Where’s he gone?”

            Paige realised that she didn’t have an answer and panic began to set in once more.

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Stillborn XII (Josh)

XII - Josh

            Josh was impatient to get moving.  There seemed to be something inherently wrong with sitting around in a fake living room in a department store whilst the end of the world might be happening outside.  He knew where they needed to go.  He knew that Clara would be waiting for him there.  He had dropped his hints and now he knew he had to wait as patiently as he could, otherwise the others would get suspicious.  He had already nearly blown it by mentioning the cult directly.  He had to be careful from now on.

            But despite all that it still felt wrong to be just sitting.  He needed to move, to get closer to Clara.  An involuntary smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he thought of what they had done together in the factory.  He let his mind wander for a moment, then reigned it in as he felt his body stirring in response.  He didn’t want to give himself away that way either.

            And so they sat, mostly in silence, just Paige and him sharing the occasional word, whilst Henry dozed and Charlie fell asleep all curled up on a striped sofa that looked like it belonged in some old T.V. show.  Eventually Paige began to drift off as well, but Josh couldn’t.  He was too alive to be falling asleep, too anxious and excited.

            He sat for a while on his own, watching the others take their rest and he wondered why he needed them to go with him at all.  Clara had wanted them, sure, but they weren’t really necessary, were they?  She would understand if he came to her alone, wouldn’t she?  The thought of being alone with her again got his pulse racing once more and only made him more anxious to be moving.

            At last, when the excitement got too much, he stood up, walked carefully around his sleeping companions, and made his way to the stairwell.  When he was sure that none of them had woken up he picked up his pace and bit and then dashed down the steps towards the ground floor and the streets beyond.  His destination was so close he could almost taste it, but it was Clara he wanted to taste and it wouldn’t be long now.  Not long at all.

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Stillborn XI (Henry)

XI - Henry

            They found the furniture department without too much difficulty, although with no lighting, no lifts and no escalators, Henry began to regret his suggestion about halfway up to the fourth floor.

He had never been fond of department stores and liked them even less since Irene died.  Having no reason to be dragged around looking at ladies’ clothes, crockery and curtains, he found it easiest just to avoid altogether.  Despite this, he was surprised by how much he remembered of the store’s old layout and noted with interest and occasional frustration  those areas which seemed to be in the same place and those which had moved since his last visit.  Fortunately furniture wasn’t one of them.

They made their way over to a comfortable looking roomset and Henry dropped into an armchair which looked like it had been made for him.  It was soft and hard in all the right places and taking the weight off his bruised and battered hip worked wonders for his mood.  Josh and Paige found spots on a matching sofa and Charlie curled up in an accent armchair which, in Henry’s opinion, didn’t look like it belonged at all, even in the dark.

“How long do you need to rest?” Josh asked after a moment’s silence.

“I don’t know,” Henry replied honestly enough, “fifteen minutes?  Half an hour?  Longer?”

“We shouldn’t stay too long,” the youth replied.  He sounded impatient, but then the young often were.

“Why?” Paige asked, “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

“No,” Josh replied, a little too quickly, “but every time we go to a place and stick around something bad happens.  I’d like to leave here before the mannequins come to life or we get attacked by some sort of escalator monster.”

“Ghosts,” Henry said, musing.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s ghosts you should be worrying about here.  Have you never heard the stories of the haunted department store?”

“No.” Josh replied doubtfully.

“Neither have I,” Paige added, “what did they say?”

“Oh, just that there were cold patches in the older parts of the store sometimes and that, at night, the CCTV cameras would pick up movement in the fashion aisles, clothes rippling in breezes that could never have been there.  That sort of thing.  All nonsense of course.”

“Of course,” Paige replied, but Henry saw her shiver slightly and he tried to suppress a laugh.  It would not be kind, he knew, but the susceptibility of the young never ceased to amaze him.

“Where should we head after this?” Paige asked.

“I have no idea,” Henry replied, “I’m not really sure there’s anywhere we can go.”

“Well, where would this cult  you mentioned be?”

“They could be anywhere these days.  You heard the prayed in the factory – they’ve probably used half the buildings in the city as their chapels and cathedrals over the years.”

“Yeah, but, I bet that, given the chance, they would want to use something more significant than that.”  Josh said.

“What do you know about them?”  Paige asked, suddenly turning towards the young man, “You didn’t mention anything to him at any point did you Henry?” she glanced his way, then shook her head, “No, we haven’t been apart since we left the factory.”

“I must have overheard something, then,” Josh replied awkwardly.

Henry tried to think if he would have had the opportunity, but then shook his head.  There was no point trying to fathom out things like that, and why else would the boy know?

“So where do you think they’d be?” he asked instead.

“If I were one of them I’d head right for the heart, to the old city kirk, right in the middle of everything .”

“Perhaps we should try there, then,” Paige agreed, “maybe we can stop all this?”

Henry shifted in his chair and agreed.  “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

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Stillborn X (Paige)

X - Paige

            Paige, Josh and Charlie all stared out into the street in silence.  They could still hear the creatures moving about outside, could see the writhing wall of fog where they roamed, but there was no sign of them advancing towards the department store.  They just seemed to want to move about in the street, like a big heard of cows made of mist.

            “I think we’re just an inconvenience to them,” Josh said after a few moments had passed.  “They don’t want to hunt us, just get us out of the way.”

            “Is that what they've done to Henry?” Paige asked, unable to hide the shakiness in her voice.

            Josh didn't answer.  Instead he kept staring out into the street like he was expecting something to happen.

            No.  Not expecting.  Hoping.

            And then it did.

            Amidst the no-noises of the monsters she could hear the sound of huffing and puffing, the out of breath sounds of an old man trying to run, and growing louder, but she still couldn’t see anything.  She took a step forward and tried to peer out around the broken glass of the department store door.  At first she didn’t see anything else, and then, to her right, she caught a glimpse of movement through the fog, a shadow clinging to the walls as the creatures shifted nearby.

            “I think I see him!” she nearly shouted, reining her voice back in to a harsh whisper at the last moment.  She didn't want to get the attention of those creatures, however they felt about her.

            Josh leaned out next and as he did so the shape began to resolve itself into the outline of  a person.  By the time Charlie joined them it was clear that it was Henry.  The old man looked more tired than ever as he staggered along the side of the street, one hand on the wall, clearly out of breath.  He ran with a slight limp, and his free hand clutched at his hip.  Josh reached an arm out towards him and then, when he drew near, pulled him into the relative safety of the store.

            “Oh thank God, Henry,” Paige said as soon as he was inside, “we thought they’d got you!”

            “I think… they nearly…. did,” he replied, leaning against a tall hard-case trolley suitcase whilst he regained his breath.

            Now that Henry was safely with them, Paige turned away from the street and took in the ground floor of the department store.  Without Josh's torch it was difficult to see very much and the whole shop had an atmosphere of gloom.  Innocent items like trampolines and knitting bags took on sinister aspects and whilst it was clearly safer inside than out, it was not a welcoming place.

            This isn’t like stopping by for a browse and a cup of coffee on a Saturday afternoon.

            She had no idea what they would do now, but as usual Josh took the lead.  When it was clear that Henry had recovered enough he motioned them all away from the door and they followed him deeper into the store, towards the cash desks and racks of children’s toys.

            “We still need to make it into the city centre,” he said, “but I don’t suppose walking down the street outside is the best plan for now.  This store has a connecting tunnel to the shopping centre at the end of James’ street, doesn’t it?”

            Paige and Henry nodded at the same time.

            “Then I propose we try that and stay indoors for as long as possible.  Any objections?”

            “Can we not just rest here?” Henry asked.  “We could go to the bedroom department, or something.”

            “I think we’re best to keep moving until we find someone else,” Josh replied, “but if you need a sit down for a while, I suppose ten minutes wouldn’t hurt.”

            “Good,” the old man replied, “I think furniture is on the fourth floor.”

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Stillborn IX (Henry)

IX - Henry

Henry just wasn't as fast as the others.  He had been slower to notice what was going on in the fog, slower to react and was slower on his feet once he got going.  As the others disappeared into the blind vapour and the chaos of shouts and footfalls and that horrible sound which was not a sound, he had managed to get turned around and wasn't sure exactly which way the others had run.  He panicked and the fog closed in around him.

As the noises grew louder he knew he had to run, but he had no idea where to.  He began stumbling around in the dark and the mist, half running, half staggering, taking sudden, jerky turns as he though, just for a moment, that he knew which way was right.  Shapes moved to either side of him.  Like monsters of the deep they could be determined only from a flicker of movement, a sense of something sweeping by.  Their true nature and scale was obscured.

He began to pick up speed and tried to keep to a straight line, though he still veered left and right now and then, unable to hold his resolve.

There was a sudden, silk-slick silence to his left and he was suddenly knocked sideways by a tendril of fog as solid as stone.  He staggered a few steps then fell over his own feet, landing with a sharp pain in his hip.

Oh god, oh god, please don't let it be broken.

He pushed against the ground with grazed hands, trying to regain his feet and was relieved when his legs began to take up the effort as well.  He brought himself up to full height, wincing at the pain in his side and then started running once more.

There were more of them now, he was sure of it.  He could feel them moving past him like mighty dinosaurs made of cloud, though he now knew that they were more solid than they appeared to be.  Every step felt precarious, a dance between the legs of giants and he felt he needed to be careful.  Panic made him clumsy, however, and if it was, indeed, a dance, then it was a drunken one.  He stumbled from place to place, narrowly sidestepping rippling walls of fog, at one point even putting his hands out to bounce off some part of a monster before ricocheting between the legs of another.

It was chaos.  It was outside of his control.  It was terrifying.

And then he collided with a wall.

It took him a moment to realise what he had run into and another moment to regain his senses enough to try to take stock.  He couldn't see very far in either direction, but he could see enough of the building he had reached to work out which storefront it must be.  By that he was able to judge that he was about two hundred yards further down James Street than he had intended to be and that if her followed the wall to his right he would reach the department store.

His relief was tempered by the sounds all around him, reminding him that the creatures were still there and though they did not seem to be actively pursuing him, they were a very real danger nonetheless.  He took a deep breath and, with one hand tracing the granite of the wall to his left, he made a dash for it.

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Stillborn VIII - Charlie

VIII

            And there it was.  Charlie could see it.  The department store, rising up out of the mist like some pirate galleon, was only a few dozen feet away.  It’s windows, normally lit even late at night, were full of Christmas trees and ideal gift suggestions.  Charlie found the sight reassuring, although without the lights, and surrounded by fog as they were, everything seemed to take on a slightly more sinister aspect.  He tried to ignore that and instead made his way towards the entrance.

            He was running faster than he had realised and didn’t allow himself enough time to stop, slamming into the plate glass door of the shop with painful force, but fortunately managing to hit it side on and thus letting his shoulder take the brunt of it, not his nose or face.  As he bounced back he noticed Paige running up behind him.  Before he could do anything she enveloped him in a sudden, unexpected hug.

            “Don’t do that,” she whispered fiercely into his hair, “please, don’t do that, again.”

            “We had to run,” he replied, then, seeing the wall of fog advancing behind Josh, who was running to catch up, he added, “we still do.”

            Paige glanced over her shoulder as Josh skidded to a halt beside them.

            “We need to find some shelter,” he said, “they’re following us.”

            “We can see that!”

            “We need to go in here,” Charlie said as calmly as possible.

            “Into the store?”  Josh didn’t sound convinced, but Charlie merely nodded.

            “There isn’t time to find anywhere else,” Paige added, looking back over her shoulder once more and biting her lip.

            “Okay, then,” said Josh, before turning to the plate glass doors, giving himself a slight run up and ramming them with his shoulder.  Charlie watched as the young man bounced off just the same way he had.

            “We need something stronger,” Paige said, glancing around until her eyes fell on a nearby bench.  “Can you help me with this?”

            It took the three of them to move it, and it wasn’t easy, or quick.  The fog wall was still advancing and there was still no sign of Henry, which was starting to worry Charlie.  When they got the bench near to the door Josh started giving directions as to how they needed to swing it.  Charlie thought it was all pretty self evident, but he listed to Josh anyway.

            “On the count of three.  One.  Two.  Three!”

            The crash ought to have been terrifyingly loud.  On  a normal night it would have brought alarms with it, people looking out their windows, dialling 999.  That night, it just seemed to be muted by the fog.  Crystal glass fell across the street and the three survivors ran inside, into another world of toys and handicrafts and luxury luggage.

            And still there was no sign of Henry.

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Stillborn VI - VII (Paige, Josh)

 VI - Paige

            Paige couldn’t believe it was all happening again so soon.  She watched as Charlie slipped ahead of them into the fog, heard herself crying out those words, “Charlie, no!” and then, as if her body was just programmed to respond that way, she started running too.

            The fog was thick, but it was moving too.  She remembered the noise of the creature from the factory, the not-noise of it, all around her now.  It felt like the fog was closing in on her, like it was something solid she was just managing to scrape past.  Something touched her arm, something else caressed her leg.  It was icy cold, damp, but so much more solid than mere fog.  And it really was all around her.  She could just make out the shapes on all sides: thick, trunk-like legs, heavy body, tendril limbs.

            “There are dozens of them,” she screamed, all she had breath for.

            Charlie was ahead of her somewhere, but she couldn’t see him.  It was as if the fog was all there was left of the world.  If Henry hadn’t called out, “What the hell,” behind her, she could have easily believed that she was all that was left in the whole Earth.  But she knew Charlie was in front of her and she had to reach him.

VII - Josh

            Clara had warned him that there might be more, but she had told him not to worry about them.  They were just birth pains, she had said, but Josh wasn’t sure he could see them that way.  One of them had nearly killed him.  If Clara hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t intervened…

            As soon as he had heard them he had broken out into a cold sweat, the hairs on his arms and his neck stood on end out of reflex, his skin dimpled into gooseflesh.  He could feel his testicles pulling in.  His whole body braced for horror and his bloodstream filled with adrenaline once more.

            That bit he was thankful for.  It allowed him to run.

            He tried not to feel them as he passed.  He tried not to hear them or see them.  His attempts were only partially successful.  Each touch was a chill moment of terror, each sound, filling the air around him, was a memory of a nightmare.  He found that, through the horrific rush of it all, he wanted to cry.  The thought made him feel ashamed, but that only seemed to make it worse.  He wondered if that meant he was on the edge of hysterics.

            And then the fog seemed to thin and he could see some distance ahead of himself once more.  Charlie and Paige were running before him, approaching what he thought was the end of the street and Charlie was veering towards the old department store.  Henry was nowhere to be seen.

            He shot a quick glance over his shoulder.  Behind him there was nothing but a mass of roiling, angry fog.  He could just make out the shapes of the fog creatures within and still the horrible no-noise of their movements sucked at his ears, but there was no sign of Henry.  Worse, the wall of thicker fog seemed to be following him, advancing.

            He fixed his eyes on the other two and the department store and just kept on running.

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Stillborn V (Charlie)

V - Charlie

            There was a department store and a shopping centre at the end of James Street.  Charlie still had a vivid memory of visiting it when he was very little with his mother, sometime before his parents had separated.  It had seemed so huge to him then, huge and full of adventures.  He remembered climbing under the clothes rails whilst his mother looked for a new dress and finding all the forgotten size markers which had fallen off the hangers.  They were like buried treasure to him, precious and exciting.  More than that, though, he had felt safe in the cosy darkness beneath the rail.  It was another world and one far, far away from his father.

            Charlie couldn’t see the department store now.  It was too dark and the fog was too thick.  Normally at this time of year it would be all lit up against the night and, during shopping hours at least, decked out with all the lights of Christmas.  It seemed like nowhere was more Christmassy than the windows of that shop, but nowhere was less so than the dark, foggy street they were walking now.

            They were probably about halfway along James street when they first heard.  It was Josh who noticed first, of course.  He stopped still a few feet ahead of everyone else and asked, “Does anyone else hear that?”

            “Hear what?” Paige asked, concerned.

            “Oh god,” Josh said and Charlie started to feel the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, because Josh sounded really scared and that could not mean anything good.

            “What is it?” Henry asked.

            “Don’t you hear it?  A sort of sound that’s not a sound?”

            They listened and sure enough, there it was.  Charlie would have struggled to describe it had he been asked, but there was something, an absence of sound that was entirely unnatural.  It sounded slick somehow, and yet there was no sound.  After a moment Paige gasped.

            “Yes,” she said, voice quivering, “I remember hearing it too.”

            “It’s getting louder,” Henry added.

            All around them the fog seemed to be thickening, cutting their already limited vision down to barely nothing.  It was getting hard to tell which way was which, although Charlie knew they hadn’t moved and so they must still be facing towards the end of the street and that unseen department store of treasured memory.  Josh was staring into the fog with wild eyes, his head flicking one way and then the next, as if he had any hope of seeing anything to warn them of where the thing was coming, but Charlie could see that they had no such hope and that, really, there was only one thing they could do.

            And so he ran.

            “Charlie, no!” came Paige’s voice from behind as he ran forward, slipped past Josh and continued to pelt down the street.  A few seconds later, however, he could hear their footfalls as they chased after him and, despite the panic, despite the effort of running, he felt relief.  As long as everyone was running, and in the right direction, there was probably some hope.

            The run was confusing.  Charlie could only see a few feet in front of his face and, if he looked down, enough of the pavement to know that he was still following the street and not cutting a diagonal.  The no-noises that Josh had noticed first were growing louder and increasing in intensity, suggesting more than one monster making them.  They seemed to be coming from all around, but Charlie couldn’t see anything.  He tried not to worry about what would happen if he ran into one.

            Something moved in the fog just to one side of him and he let out a shriek that immediately had Paige shouting after him, but only seconds later and she was screaming too.

            “There are dozens of them,” she screamed.

            “What the hell?”  That was Henry.

            And then Charlie saw another, just ahead, that he had to slide past to avoid.  It wasn’t so much a monster in the fog as it was a monster made of fog.  Incorporeal and yet strangely solid in its vaporous horror, it appeared to have a central mass on legs like miniature thunder clouds and tentacle arms.  One tentacle shot out towards him as he ran past but missed by a narrow margin.  He felt the clammy coolness of it brush his skin.

            Behind him the others were running and shouting and screaming,  but he couldn’t worry about them.  All he could do was keep running and hope that the department store was as much a place of safety as he remembered it.

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Stillborn IV (Paige)

IV - Paige

            Paige had never liked James street very much.  It had just never felt like a safe street to her.  It was always dirty and there was something about the shops which lined its pavements which only added to that sense.  A woman walking along James street might not feel particularly welcome as a person and perhaps too welcome as an object, especially during the night, and so she had always done her best to avoid it.  That she was walking down it now, through the fog with no lights at all, and was not particularly afraid was an irony she could almost laugh at.  Almost.

            She knew she should be scared.  She knew that, at any second, something could happen which could endanger all their lives.  Anything might be lurking in the fog, ready to jump out at them, but what was missing – the lights, the sounds, the drifting shadows of other people – lent the street a kind of calm it never had normally.

            There was more to it than that, of course.  Part of it was just tiredness.  Paige was tired of being scared, tired of running, tired of crying.  She was sick and tired of the whole thing, but there was nothing she could do about it, so she wandered on, almost numbed to everything until the next crisis.

            And then there was the strange revelation Henry had just given them, putting the whole evening into context.  It seemed that just knowing a bit more about what was happening made it slightly less terrifying, which was not to say it wasn’t still mysterious and monstrous, but it was no longer completely unknown.

            Finally there was that scrap of Bible she had remembered,  remember to be strong and brave.  The more she thought about it the more it seemed that she could be strong, she could be brave, no matter what.  She tried to tell herself it was just a trick of repeating the same thing over and over in her mind, but she couldn’t help but think it might have had more to do with the implicit knowledge of the rest of the verse: for the Lord your God is with you.

            She was still wondering about that.  Could there really be a God working out some good purpose in the midst of all of this darkness?  She wasn’t sure, but the thought of such a being, the mere possibility, was something of a comfort and she found her mind flicking back to that verse more and more often.  She was tempted to talk to Henry about it, but she felt embarrassed and, with everything else going on, it didn’t really seem appropriate, or even possible, so she kept her thoughts to herself.

            And so they continued to walk on in silence through the dark.

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