Dark Choir Read online

  Dark Choir

  “The disturbed mind of Paul Melhuish never fails to engross me.”

  — Tim C. Taylor, author of the Human Legion series

  “Paul’s writing is a dark delight, a twisted and macabre thing, to set your mind at unease and your nerves to glass…”

  — William Holloway, Author of Lucky’s Girl

  and The Immortal Body (The Singularity Cycle book 1)

  “Melhuish's work is terrifying and funny. I've been watching it evolve with great interest and appreciation”

  — Ian Watson, Author of The Fire Worm, The Inquisition

  War, and the screen story for Spielberg's movie A.I.

  Dark Choir

  by

  Paul Melhuish

  Copyright © 2019 Paul Melhuish

  Front Cover Design by Kealan Patrick Burke

  Formatted by Kenneth W. Cain

  Edited by Kenneth W. Cain

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Stephen

  Stephen didn’t like the man. He distrusted him intensely, but was powerless to defend himself against him.

  The wheelchair squeaked as it moved, pushed by black-gloved hands. Puffy tyres rotated over the worn, piss-stained carpet. Stephen shuffled his dwarf-like frame within the confines of the wheelchair and flexed his small, stumpy arms and legs, movement restricted by malformed joints. His fingers mere stunted nubs ending in rough nails protruding from pudgy blob-like hands.

  Stephen gurgled, one of a number of limited vocalisations he made that approximated speech. Although he understood words, he could not speak them, could not form them himself. This gurgle conveyed his apprehension, a precursor to fear.

  The silent figure pushing the wheelchair turned from the corridor into the wide hall. He pushed the wheelchair into the middle of the hall. His black-gloved hands applied the brakes.

  Stephen tried to turn his head to see the figure, movement limited by his shortened neck muscles. The figure walked away from Stephen into the darkness.

  Moonlight filtered through the tall windows on either side of the hall casting shadows across the floor. Behind Stephen, the figure shut and locked the door to ensure they were alone together. He whimpered, letting the man know he didn’t like being here. He wanted to go back to bed, to be left alone.

  The man moved around in the periphery of the room assembling objects from dark corners. Stephen could see his shadowed figure pushing things. Tall things on wheels.

  Stephen’s vocalizations increased. Expressions of his mounting anxiety. Beyond the windows, outside, the tower bell clock struck twice, the noise causing Stephen to jump.

  He tried to peer into the darkness of the room, ears attuned to the squeaking of wheels as the man assembled tall, oblong objects around Stephen’s wheelchair. When he was done, Stephen found himself encircled by the oblongs. They were positioned around his wheelchair like a henge.

  The man stood behind him. Stephen could hear his breathing and tried to shrink inside of himself at his close proximity.

  “Are you ready for this, Stephen?” said the man, the mock lightness to his tone barely concealing the menace. “I’m going to turn the light on so you can see yourself.”

  The neon strips overhead flickered and Stephen saw that he was surrounded by mirrors. Tall oblong mirrors on castors, the kind found in a tailor’s shop.

  Stephen looked at his own reflection, registering his small, malformed body, his jutting brow, huge head and wide-set eyes almost stretched too far apart to fit on his face, and he screamed.

  Stephen writhed and thrashed on seeing himself in the mirror, pulled at the sides of the chair and angled his head away from his reflection only to see another reflection from another mirror. He turned his head away in the other direction and saw yet another version of himself, all the time screaming at what he saw. The tormenter paced around the outside of the mirror-circle barely able to contain his glee.

  “Look, see what you are, Stephen. Deformed, disgusting. A monster that should have been killed at birth.”

  Stephen howled and screamed at the small pale reflection. The tormentor moved the mirrors in so the reflection was closer and clearer.

  Stephen knew he was looking at himself, he knew this was what he really looked like. He hated seeing himself. Staff in the hospital knew not to let him see his own reflection. There were no mirrors in his room or in the bathrooms. They knew how it upset him. Tears ran down the boy’s face when he saw himself as they did now.

  The figure pulled up a chair and watched as Stephen thrashed and writhed in his wheelchair. He laughed, an open, mocking laugh which echoed into the high ceiling of the hall. He laughed at Stephen’s torment to let Stephen know he was enjoying this spectacle. Stephen closed his eyes against the horror that faced him, but the image burned into his mind. It was too late. He could still see himself even when he closed his eyes.

  Stephen angled his deformed hands to his face and bent his head to meet them.

  “Go on,” cried the tormenter. “Go on, you fucker. Just a few more inches.”

  Stephen’s rough nails attacked his own flesh, the sharp ends stabbing into his cheeks, gouging until he at last reached his eyes. The tormentor laughed harder when bloody gashes formed in Stephen’s face. His screams penetrated the air as more and more gouges formed with each stab and scratch, the need to actualize his inner torment with self-harm overwhelming.

  He stabbed the stubby fingers into his blue, wide eyes, trying to blind himself now rather than see his own reflection, thinking that blinding himself would make the image disappear forever.

  One

  Dan zoned out for a minute and stared from his office window at the darkening street below. A cold, blue sky readied itself for sunset, the spires and skyscrapers of London were already mere silhouettes against the dying horizon. Down on the road, cars lined the thoroughfares, lights twinkling against the oncoming night. He glanced at the clock on his office wall. 3:30 p.m. Dan planned to get away early tonight, have couple of pints on the way home before getting the underground train to Waterloo and the train home. His reverie was broken by the phone ringing.

  “Good afternoon, IT Sales Department. Daniel Hepworth speaking.”

  He hoped this wouldn’t be a complicated call. An angry customer or some glitch in the programming that needed sorting out before the weekend.

  “Hello, Daniel?”

  The voice had a colloquial accent, Northern like his own but stronger. The edges of Dan’s own accent had been eroded from years of living in London. This person had called him by his first name. He felt his guts tighten and the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

  “Speaking?”

  “It’s Silas. Your uncle Silas, from Scarsdale.”

  Scarsdale. The word caused Dan to tense, a hot fear galvanized his nerves and he swallowed hard. He fought to control the reaction and focused once more on the call.

  Uncle Silas? He’d not spoken to him for years. Why was he ringing now? Obviously, something had happened. Something back home. Was it his mother? Or Lindsey perhaps?

  “I’m sorry to have to ring you like this at wor
k, but we had no way of getting hold of you. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Daniel.”

  He tensed again. “Go on.”

  “It’s your mother, Daniel. She’s died.”

  His first thought on hearing this was that he was glad nothing bad had happened to Lindsey. A numbness temporarily robbed him of the ability to speak. Thankfully, Silas filed the void of silence.

  “She was feeling a bit under the weather on Wednesday, so they called the doctor out. She was taken to the hospital, chest pains, and she died this morning. Very sudden. I would have rung earlier, but we didn’t have your number. Our Rachel found you through Facebook, and it said you worked down in London, so she found your work number on the computer. I am sorry, Daniel.”

  “What about Lindsey. Is she okay?”

  “Oh, aye. I’ve spoken to the nurse who looks after her. Alison. She’s all right for the moment but…well…there’s going to be a lot of sorting out you’ll need to do. The house will need to be sorted, death certificates and the funeral planned. I can’t help you, Dan. I’m up in Rotherham and with my hip, I can’t get around like I used to. Then there’s Lindsey. You’ll need to decide where she’s going to go.”

  “Yes, yes, all right,” he snapped, instantly feeling guilty for speaking to the old man on the end of the phone like that. He sighed. “I’ll come up.”

  “Like I said, I’d help you out but with my hip. Our Dean’s in America on his gap year and Rachel is working all hours up at the hospital. I know you don’t like coming back, Daniel, what with everything that happened.”

  “I’ve no choice. I have to come back.”

  “Will you be okay, Dan?”

  “Yeah. I don’t intend staying long.”

  He took the number for the hospital. Silas offered his condolences again and ended the conversation

  “Shit,” Dan said out loud.

  He sat in the silence of the office, head heavy with the prospect of returning back to Scarsdale and the house on One Farm Road.

  He would need to tell his manager about this. Phil would understand and might even pay him compassionate leave. He’d had plans for the weekend. Derby County versus Northampton Town on the telly Saturday afternoon. He was going to watch it with Jeff down at the pub. A dinner party at Beverly’s on Saturday night. Five-a-side football practice on Sunday. All that was off.

  The idea of returning to that house, that tomb on the side of a hill, made him feel ill. He’d not been there for ten years. Truth be told, he’d put the place out of his mind, buried it with the rest of his shitty past. Now he would have to face it again.

  Still, like he’d said to Uncle Silas, he didn’t intend staying there long. He reached for the phone to ring his manager.

  Beverly turned onto Euston Road and fought through the traffic. After leaving the office, Dan had gone home and packed, rung Beverly and she’d driven him right to the station. She wanted to drive with him to Scarsdale, but he’d dissuaded her.

  “You must feel awful,” she said again.

  “Just waiting for it to sink in.”

  “I don’t want the grief to suddenly hit you when you get on the train or something.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “I’m serious. I couldn’t imagine how I’d cope if it was my mother.”

  “Not being funny, but you have a different relationship with your mother than I had with Diane. I mean, you have a relationship. I’d not really spoken to her for five years. I’ve not seen her for ten years. Now I’ll never see her again. Every cloud and all that.”

  Beverly shook her head, creased her forehead and frowned. He hated it when she frowned like that. “Dan, she’s your mother. How can you speak about her like that?”

  “You never met her. Religious nut case. She was a right cow to me and to my sister. I just want to get up there, do what I have to do, and bury the past with her. Job done.”

  “Why do you have to do this? You always do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Put on your Northern hard-man act when things get close to the bone with you.”

  He felt irritation bite. Were they going to have yet another row now? Another row as he was on his way to deal with his mother’s death?

  “It’s just the grief talking,” he said sardonically.

  “There you go again.”

  His irritation increased and thankfully he saw the sign for St. Pancras station.

  “Were you planning to invite her to the wedding?” Beverly said, and he felt his teeth gritting against each other.

  “I’d not thought about it.” He shrugged. “Pretty much a moot point now, anyway.”

  “For God’s sake, you’re unbelievable,” she almost snarled and pulled the car up onto the side of the road. “Ring me when you get there. And take care.”

  He kissed her on the cheek without affection, pulled his hold-all from between his legs, and exited the car, breathing a sigh of relief as she pulled away. He walked into the bright, cold station and bought a one-way ticket to Scarsdale.

  He would have to change at Birmingham New Street and then again at Derby Central. This would not be a quick journey. He headed for the platform, stopping to buy a coffee on the way and wishing he could drink something stronger.

  Boarding the train, he found a seat and wedged himself in by a window before the carriage filled up too quickly. He watched the commuters hurrying back and forth along the platform.

  Sitting there gave Daniel time to think. He was engaged to be married in May. It was November now and the stark realisation that May was a few months away hit him. Up until now, he’d not really thought about the reality of getting married. Beverly wanted a big posh wedding he could ill afford, and all they’d done for the past few weeks was argue. She wanted to have the reception at a five-star hotel, and he’d proposed they have a marquee in her parent’s massive garden at their house in Surrey. Maybe after the wedding things would settle down, they’d stop arguing.

  The train pulled away triggering a twinge of fear. He’d be in Birmingham in two hours. As Dan mapped out the rest of the journey in his head, that same feeling of dread appeared.

  He envisioned the house, the isolation, the memories that would surface. Returning the Scarsdale would be like unearthing a grave.

  Two

  Daniel wasted time at Birmingham New Street station. He felt safe here. The bright lights and the buzz of human activity, he seriously considered just getting a train back to London. Spending the weekend in the flat or in the pub across the road from the flat watching the footy. Perhaps he could compose a Dear Jane letter for Beverly and send it. Wait for the fallout. Dan was far too much of a coward to do that.

  As for his mother’s death, he could always let the hospital and then the solicitors deal with it. Hospitals must have measures for patients who have no relatives. If he didn’t show up, then maybe someone else would dig out the funeral plan paperwork, deal with the burial, the house.

  In reality, he knew he couldn’t do that. Running away from this wasn’t an option. He had Lindsey to consider. Dan would need to formulate a plan for his sister’s future care and for that he needed to be there. Besides, he wanted to see her. She was a small patch of flickering light in a great dark night ahead.

  The next train to Derby arrived, so he hitched up his hold-all and made his way down the escalators to the platform. The fourth carriage was relatively empty so he sat at a window seat, backwards facing.

  He felt his discomfort increase as the train headed north into darkness. Beyond the windows, there was nothing but blackness, the occasional light from a house or a station they’d passed through. In no time at all, he’d arrived in Derby and found himself running to the next train that stopped at Scarsdale. He found a seat and a group of noisy teenagers, all baseball caps and bad language, sat in the seats opposite. They had a bottle of whiskey and were taking great slugs of it. Their accents sounded so strange now after living in Lo
ndon. He’d forgotten how pronounced the dialect up here was. They were boasting noisily about how they’d got shitfaced at a party last week.

  Dan remembered being like them. Mouthy and confident. He was thirty-one and being that young seemed like an age ago. He’d not done badly for himself. He had a good job, a flat in Raynes Park which he could barely afford and a demanding fiancé. All that, even the troubled relationship, was a million times better than being here. He’d escaped Scarsdale and had never looked back.

  He tried to calculate how long he’d actually have to stay there and sort everything out but had no clue how long this all would take. His father had died when he was young so Diane, his mother, had taken care of the arrangement and Dan could barely remember the funeral. He must have been five when his father died. As an adult he was clueless regarding the process of death; funeral arrangements, reading of the will even how to order flowers for the funeral.

  The prospect of actually having to enter Scarsdale loomed large again. He was not looking forward to stepping onto that platform. On a practical level he wondered how he was going to get from Scarsdale train station to One Farm Road which was about five miles out of the town.

  There was still a phone signal so Daniel decided to ring the house. He knew Lindsey had a part-time caregiver so maybe one of them would be in. Keying in the number from memory, he put the phone to his ear to hear it ringing. So Diane hadn’t changed the phone number at least.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hepworth’s residence, Alison Coombs speaking.” The woman who’d answered had a polite phone voice and her Derbyshire accent cut through.

  “Oh, right. This is Daniel Hepworth. I’ll be arriving at the house in about an hour. Could you leave the key somewhere, please?”

  “Oh, Mr. Hepworth. I’ll be here to let you in myself. I’m Lindsey’s caregiver. I’m sorry to hear of Mrs. Hepworth’s passing away.” Yeah, I bet you were, he thought, she was fucking paying you. “I’ll still be up when you get in. I’ll put some supper on for you, shall I?”