Here's how it all begins...
ONE
Saltonstall
Farm was not a regular haunted house, and yet outwardly it possessed all of the
traits necessary to be classed as one. Its location was isolated, set back from
a seldom-used road in the southern English countryside. Its entrance was hidden
by an army of overgrown pine and beech trees. And it enjoyed local notoriety,
people in the area aware of its macabre recent history and, as a result, preferring
to pretend Saltonstall didn’t exist. Only local school kids mentioned the place,
scaring each other with torchlit faces that boomed tall tales of ghosts in the
barn, zombies in the kitchen, corpses in the wood. But few knew the precise
location of the farm’s entrance, denoted by a beech tree with a thick, white
horizontal line daubed across its trunk. Even fewer knew that if you fought
your way through the overgrown undergrowth you’d stumble across a crooked
wooden, five-foot-high sign featuring the farm’s name in a dark red that legend
insisted was blood. Truth or not, even in the scarce light that pierced through
the confusion of intertwined stems and twigs, the lettering possessed a strange
glow, and the sign pointed inaccurately up a narrow lane made claustrophobic by
branches whose neglect had allowed them to grow unchallenged for so long they
were ready to finger and scratch and claw at the faces arms legs of anyone who
walked that way, and scrape and slash and grab at the roofs windows wing
mirrors of any vehicles that drove that way.
At
the end of the lane, the overgrowth ended suddenly, giving way to a patch of
unkempt grass half the size of a football field. To its right, the gravelly
drive fell away, separating the grass from the two-storey farmhouse, which was
set at a curious angle to the lane, making it look like it was leering at new
arrivals.
The
house had fallen into major disrepair. The front door hung from its one
remaining hinge in the crumbling portico, its thick, once-varnished oakwood
rotting, the doorstep and frame overgrown with an unsightly and unwelcoming
combination of spear thistle, chickweed and ragwort.
But
Saltonstall Farm had plenty more wrong with it than these cosmetic
shortcomings. As those who worked the surrounding land were at pains to point
out, ‘a decrepit barn, an even more decrepit shepherd’s hut, a couple of fields
and a ring of dense woodland do not a farm make.’
Saltonstall
was, more accurately, a smallholding, built in 1786 by two brothers. Its
haunting, however, like the wooden patio decking between the rear of the
farmhouse and its adjacent barn, was a more recent addition.
The fact that
all was not well at Saltonstall was announced innocently enough, a crow’s
squawk disturbing the uneasy silence of a late summer’s afternoon in 2002, the
flap of the bird’s wings fanning the dust that hung in the still, humid air as
it launched itself from a broken upstairs window like a suicidal, leaving
behind a rotting oak framed window ledge splattered with the white paint of its
own dung.
The
squawk was followed by a scream that was not immediately recognisable as coming
from either human or beast. Not that the hundred birds that instantly fled the
treetops en masse like rising flour dust cared. They were out of there, those
that stayed soon witnesses to three gunshots that rang out in quick succession.
A
wild boar, fattened by the thickness of its own unkempt coat, scampered from
the cedarwood barn behind the farmhouse, its head down, eyes startled. It was
followed out by Lucas Berner, a sixty-year-old with skin as grey as his
ponytailed hair, squinting along the barrel of his smoking Country Hunter .50
calibre flintlock rifle. He took aim at the boar running for its life up the
mud track that led away from the farmhouse in between its two fields to the
woodland at its distant end. His forefinger flicked the trigger but there was
no give. He pulled the gun away, cursing its age and unreliability, briefly
examining the jammed trigger before taking aim again. He flicked the rifle
first left then right. But the boar was gone.
Lucas
lowered the weapon and turned his attention back to the barn, a crooked structure
that leant away from Saltonstall farmhouse as though afraid of it, almost to
the point of collapse. Gripping the rifle, he trudged across the mud and peered
through a gap in its uneven slats.
‘I’m
sorry, bro’ he shouted into the barn, his breath laboured, his frequent gulping
betraying just how scared he was. ‘I had to do something.’ He poked the rifle’s
barrel through the crack, squinting, finger hovering over the trigger.
‘You’ve
been sick awhile and slowly getting worse,’ he continued. ‘I was scared. You
proper scared me bro. I dunno if you’re hit. But if you come on out slowly, I
won’t fire. I’ll take you in.’
A
thud from the far corner caused Lucas to swing from his waist like he was
tracking pheasant. His ears fancied they’d heard something heavy falling on
damp wood, but in the failing light, exacerbated by his failing eyesight, he
couldn’t be sure. The subsequent silence was broken by a low snort, then a snap
of brittle bone.
‘What’s
going on in there?’ Lucas shouted, his blood pressure higher than his doctor
would have recommended, had he been brave enough to see one in the last twenty
years. ‘C’mon bro. I can get you help.’
More
thuds were followed by a rustle of hay. Then a black boot, its toecaps scuffed
and leather creased, slid into view.
‘Get
up,’ Lucas shouted, still squinting through the crosshatch. The heel of the
boot thudded against the barn floor in the farthest stall.
‘I’m
going to fire again,’ Lucas shouted, shifting slightly to his left to get a
better angle, looking past the cartwheel that hung pointlessly from the barn
wall, beyond the rusty pig’s trough and metallic confusion of the red and
yellow thresher that stood lop-sided on one punctured wheel, blackening the hay
underneath as it leaked oil like blood from a deep wound, drip by slow drip.
This
new angle brought into play another boot, laying at an unnatural angle to the
first. Above it, an ill-fitting navy blue trouser leg, shapeless and speckled
with dusty brown stains. Lucas tracked up further and gasped. In an instant, he
felt bitter bile force its way up from his stomach into the back of his throat.
Gagging, he turned away, dropping the rifle as his hands covered his mouth.
He
spat out the bile and recovered his composure with deep breaths. Picking up the
gun, he peered back into the barn.
His
eyes returned to the leg, stained red, blood soaking into the strands of hay
beneath it like mercury rising up a thermometer’s stem. He tracked the blue
trousered lower leg up to the knee, pausing, not wanting to look higher,
because he knew… he knew he had to see it again. There was nothing above the knee. Nothing but hay drowning in
blood.
A
sudden squeal rocked Lucas back, the shock almost proving too much for his
heart. He lurched forward, fumbling the rifle until it pointed into the barn.
Another wild boar was sniffing the wounded legs, its snout bloodied, red saliva
dripping from its mouth as it chomped on flesh.
Lucas
struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. He knew he and his brother hadn’t fed
any of Saltonstall’s animals for weeks. But this? The nature of the boar’s
desperate meal sent chills pulsing down his spine.
He
steered the rifle toward the beast, splitting wood as he sought a clear shot, a
chance to spare his brother this indignity. He took aim, and fired, the boar’s
flank bursting open as if it had swallowed a stick of lit dynamite. Flesh and
blood rained against the barn’s walls. Strange circular sparks floated out of
the exposed wound. Lucas turned away, not wishing to bear witness to the
beast’s last kicks and thrashes. He clenched his eyes shut and waited for the
sound of scraping hooves, flailing along wood and through hay to cease.
When
the dying was done, he took a deep breath, the total silence of the countryside
taking over, a serenity that was quickly invaded by thoughts of what to do with
his brother’s corpse. There were plenty of places to bury a body out here and
few people who’d miss Casper. Neither brother had left Saltonstall for over a
year, and no one had paid a visit in that time.
Lucas
decided he would bag-up his brother’s corpse and bury it amid one of the many
bramble bushes that grew unchallenged up in the woods. He rested his rifle
against the barn wall and walked toward the house to get binbags from the
kitchen. As he stepped through the patio doors he stopped and cocked his head. That
was definitely a scraping sound coming from the barn. An unexpected last twitch
from the pig? He walked back and slowly opened the door. The boar lay at the
far end exactly where it had fallen, its midriff an exploded mess.
Another
scrape. Definitely not the boar.
Lucas
edged further into the barn, his boots thudding against the hardwood floor as
he moved closer to his brother’s corpse which lay in the third and final stall
on the left.
Another
scrape. Coming from that direction. Lucas hoped it was just a rat, quick to scent
the feast that awaited. Saltonstall had a major rodent problem. Lucas had lost
count of the number of times he’d told Casper they needed a cat, but his
brother had always refused. ‘Just another mouth to feed,’ he reasoned.
He
edged closer until his brother’s shock of grey hair was visible over the top of
the fence that divided the final two stalls. Fine hairs were dancing on his
scalp, catching the breeze that sneaked through the gaps in the barn wall.
Casper
was slumped in the corner of the stall, leaning slightly forward, leaking blood
from two gunshot wounds in his chest, with a third wound just above the knee.
The hay around his corpse was slowly turning from an oily yellow to a brilliant
red. Lucas’ thoughts reverted to how he was going to get the body out and clean
up the mess. He turned away, looking for the wheelbarrow (there was definitely
one somewhere).
When
he turned back, Lucas froze. His
brother’s head was gradually rising. His
brother was slowly sitting up. His brother was trying to stand up. Lucas
backed away, trying to shake this horrific vision out of his head. Casper leant
against the stall fence and pulled himself up then looked down, disgusted by
the wounds in his chest, dismayed that half of his leg remained on the barn
floor, separated from the rest of his body, a chunk bitten out of its calf by
the bloodthirsty boar whose carcass lay on the floor in front of him.
Casper
leered at Lucas then grabbed the pitchfork that protruded from the haystack in
the corner of the stall. Lucas backed away, fearing Casper was about to launch
it at him. But his brother needed it as a makeshift walking stick.
After
hobbling a few steps, Casper stopped and looked down into the hay. The
amputated section of his leg twitched, then spun three hundred and sixty
degrees, taking on a life of its own. Lucas looked at it aghast. Casper eyed
Lucas and smiled, then raised the pitchfork above his head and mercilessly
plunged it into the quivering flesh, twisting the tines until the leg was
still.
Lucas
backed away, shaking his head, as he tried to convince himself none of this was
happening while searching for a weapon he could defend himself with in case it
really was. He tried to rip the cartwheel from the wall, but it had hung there
for a generation and planned on staying another. He skirted the thresher and
backed into the pigs’ trough, its lightweight tin making a thin, hollow clang
as it scraped along the barn floor.
‘You
are not my brother,’ Lucas shouted at his brother.
Casper
tried to speak, but succeeded only in producing a rasping gargle. His eyeballs
rolled up into his head as if he were experiencing an intense pain beyond
anything he’d endured before.
Lucas
retreated to the entrance of the barn, never once taking his eyes off his
slowly advancing brother.
‘There’s
a gun out here, bro,’ he warned. ‘And I won’t hesitate to use it and separate
your head from your shoulders.’
Casper
continued to hobble forward, the three tines of the pitchfork thudding against
the floor, splitting the moist wood as they dug in. When he reached the barn
door he stopped, the harsh shafts of daylight stealing in were causing his head
to roll and shake like his neck was made of putty. He lurched from side to side
then his head swung round and round as his mouth was forced open. It looked to
Lucas like he was letting out a piercing, bone-shaking shriek. Only he made no
noise.
Outside
on the decking, Lucas glanced furtively to his left and was greeted by the
reassuring sight of his rifle. In a flash his hands were on it and it was in
front of his head and he was squinting and fumbling for the trigger, but
nothing was happening. He was pressing the trigger but he wasn’t blowing his
brother away. His brother was filling the barn doorway, squinting in the
brightness, snarling in mockery of his brother’s inability.
‘Bastard
thing,’ Lucas shouted. He shaped to throw the weapon to the ground but checked
himself. If his brother got hold of it, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Confused,
repelled and scared, Lucas ran, away from the barn, up the track toward the
woods, slashing at invisible assailants with the rifle, yelling incoherence as
he stumbled into the right-hand field, running as fast as his sixty-year-old
lungs and legs would let him, through patches of bare ground and areas of lush
grass where the few remaining sheep and goats hadn’t yet grazed. As he ran up
the field toward the shepherd’s hut, he held the rifle at arm’s length in front
of him, and looked over his shoulder to see if his brother was gaining.
The
sheep saw Lucas approaching with the gun and fled en mass up a gently
undulating bank of sun-yellowed grass peppered with molehills of dung in
various stages of decay.
Lucas
didn’t know where he was going, only that he wanted to get there fast. He had
to be hallucinating, had to be. This
was down to lack of food. He hadn’t eaten well for days. Longer. Weeks. Neither
of them had. He turned again and saw his brother staggering up the track, one
arm leaning on the pitchfork, the other extended straight in front of his face,
like a, like a… Lucas couldn’t bring himself to think it, let alone say it.
As
the gloom of evening took its rapid hold on the fast-fading light of day, Lucas
quickened his pace and plunged into the woods. Casper gave up the chase and stood
guard outside Saltonstall farmhouse, waiting for his brother’s inevitable
return.
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