Dark Winter Tales: a collection of horror short stories. Paul Finch

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СКАЧАТЬ was partly due to the empty space underneath. It was one of the unusual features of Fun Land that, to facilitate drainage of the autumn rains or spring melt-water from the heights of Diffwys and Cadair Idris, numerous channels had been tunnelled underneath the park, leading eventually to the sea. Back in 1920, during construction, the park’s original designers had made a special feature out of this: the Fun Land Marina had been built. This was a deep, octagonal harbour, about sixty yards in diameter, into which numerous of the drainage channels discharged, their vents carved into dolphin heads or the mouths of tritons and sea gods, but more importantly, from which motorised mock-Venetian gondolas would take paying guests out along the so-called Royal Canal for a ride around the bay, calling eventually at the Jubilee Pier, where they would ascend via a special stairway decked in a red carpet, then walk about for a bit and presumably buy a different brand of candyfloss from that on sale in the park.

      Sharon crossed over the Marina via an arching metal footbridge. Rather to her surprise, the tide lapped against the aged pilings below. If nothing else, she’d expected the Royal Canal to have bogged itself up by now, but apparently not. There were even a few boats on view, though most looked like hulks banked in silt. As she reached the far side, a second clarion call announced that she’d received another text from Slater.

       Haunted Palace

      “What?” she groaned. “What the bloody …”

      A voice she didn’t recognise replied to her.

      Sharon turned, surprised. The bridge arched away through moonlight. No-one else was standing on it.

      “No-one,” she said.

      The voice replied again, apparently mimicking her.

      It was a long half-second before she realised she was hearing an echo, probably from underneath the bridge. Even so, for the first time her thoughts strayed away from what she wanted to do here onto whether or not this was a good idea.

      Despite the moonlight, everything was so black and still. On all sides, the jumbled silhouettes of gantries, domes, wheels and monorails blocked out the horizon, reminding her how deep inside the park she was. She wouldn’t easily be able to find her way back, and in addition she was now expected to locate the Haunted Palace. Enough was enough. Rarely in this relationship had she and Slater spoken to each other on their own mobiles; they didn’t have a particular rule about this – it was just that texting was simpler. But now she called him and waited impatiently while the number rang out – until it switched to voicemail.

      She rang him again, and again. On both these occasions it switched to voicemail.

      So it was the Haunted Palace. Bloody great! Snatches of childhood memory recollected dark tunnels, staccato lights, booming laughter. Not the most salubrious venue for romance.

      Not that she felt like giving him any.

      She pivoted around, finally spying what looked like a set of battlements protruding above the Pancake House, and sidled towards them, glancing over her shoulder as she did – again she thought she’d heard something, though it was probably another echo. She zigzagged through a labyrinthine section, which had once been nicknamed the Shambles because it was basically a market filled with novelty stands, ice cream vendors and the like. It also contained the Gobstopper, an attraction that had freaked her out a little even as a teen. It comprised a row of clown heads and torsos – minus limbs – mounted on metal poles, each with a gaping mouth to serve as a target. Contestants stood behind a counter and pelted them with hard wooden balls, the idea being to get as many as you could through the open mouth of your particular clown and down into its belly. With each clean hit, the eyes would light up to the accompaniment of bells, whistles and hysterical ‘Daffy Duck’ giggles. Sharon had thought it an odd-looking thing even back then; she’d never been able to shake off an impression that the dummy clowns were screaming – and even now as she walked past the row of de-limbed figures, still sitting motionless under their canvas awning, she fancied their ink-black eyes were following her.

      When she emerged in front of the Haunted Palace, it was initially no more than a gothic outline in the gloom, yet in that strange way of long-ago familiarity, it all seemed so recognisable. It was easy to recall the wild screams as one car after another shunted its way up the access ramp and vanished through a pair of huge, nail-studded doors. The Palace itself was mock-medieval, sponge rubber and fibreglass doubling as heavy stonework, but when she shone her torch at it, she saw that it had decayed badly. Its griffins and gargoyles had dropped off, and fissures had snaked across it, exposing the framework underneath.

      Of course there was no sign of Slater.

      Sharon stood by the barrier and phoned him again. Still it went to voicemail. “Geoff!” she said under her breath. And then, because frankly she couldn’t take much more of this: “Geoff, where the hell are you?”

      A voice replied. At first she thought it was another echo, though on this occasion it sounded as if it had come from inside the Haunted Palace. She ducked under the barrier and stood at the foot of the access ramp, on which only eroded metal stubs remained of the rail-car system. The door at the top stood ajar.

      Finally, she ascended. It had definitely sounded as if the voice had called her by name. So it was Geoff. But if so, why didn’t he come out? She approached the door, the glare of her torch penetrating the gaunt passage beyond but revealing very little. When she entered, it stank of mildew. The ghostly murals that once adorned the fake brick walls had mouldered to the point where they were unrecognisable. She ventured on, turning a sharp corner – no doubt one of those hairpin bends where, for their own entertainment, everyone inside the car would be thrown violently to one side – and stopped in her tracks.

      A tall figure stood in the dimness, just beyond the reach of her torchlight.

      “Geoff?” she said, in the sort of querulous tone the general public would never associate with a police officer on duty.

      The figure remained motionless; made no reply.

      “Geoff?”

      Still no reply; no movement. She advanced a couple more steps, the light spearing ahead of her. And then a couple more, and finally, relieved, she strode forward boldly.

      It was a department store mannequin, albeit in a hideous state: burned, mutilated, covered with spray-paint. Up close, its face had been scarred and slashed frenziedly; for some reason, she imagined a pair of scissors. When she tried to shove it aside, it swung back and forth. Glancing up, she saw that it was hanging by a wire noose, which, even given everything else that had been done to it, seemed a little OTT.

      Another thought now strayed unavoidably into Sharon’s mind, one that perhaps had been lurking on the periphery of her consciousness for the last few minutes.

      Blair McKellan, the ‘Night Caller’; a maniac who, for twelve terrible months in the north of England, had broken into homes during the early hours and, using whatever household utensils he’d found, had slaughtered the families sleeping there.

      But it was impossible. McKellan had stolen a security van from the asylum, which meant he’d be far to the south by now. There was no possibility he could have driven north from Lowerhall; he’d have had to come through the town itself, which would have been too much of a risk.

      Vandals were responsible for the mannequin. Some bunch of stupid kids who had nothing better to do. But of course that didn’t explain the voice she’d thought she’d heard, or why Geoff Slater wasn’t here. СКАЧАТЬ