Carved in Stone: Monochrome Destiny (26 page)

“I
hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t sleep.  I needed to check on
something.”

Andrew
took one step towards her to see what she had discovered but he didn’t make it
across the room before the lamp went off.  The screen of the computer
glowed in the dark and lit the space where Robyn sat but she couldn’t see
Andrew at all in the darkness beyond.  She could however, hear
movement.  Robyn was just about to say something, to speak to Andrew and
ask if a fuse had blown, when she heard shuffling.  Something hit the door
and sent it flying into the wall with a loud bang.

The
dog barked.  Robyn could hear Max wildly scrabbling to get from his basket
to where the noise had come from and she shoved the laptop aside, ready to
rise.

Max
barked loudly; he was in the room now, a growl in his throat.  Her eyes
started to recover from the brightness of the screen and she could see the
black outline of the dog and a person.  She assumed it was Andrew for only
a millisecond as something small, lit up brightly next to the dog making Max
yelp.

Instinct
had her off of the sofa and on her feet before she was consciously aware of the
move.  But she was too late.  On her feet, half a step forwards,
someone grabbed her.  One gloved hand covered her mouth and one crossed
her chest.  Robyn was lifted and pulled back. 

She
tried to yell, but the sound was stifled by the hand over her mouth.  She
bit down hard intending to make him drop her and breathed in ready to yell
again but a pungent scent stopped her; sweet, sickly, heady.  Fear
clutched her stomach as she gasped.  Her head felt light.  She tried
not to breathe.  She tried to hold the chemical out of her lungs. 
Robyn kicked her legs but her bare feet were ineffectual against the person
that held her.

Flailing
in the air, Robyn knocked the computer on the floor, its screen shedding light
across the room and she could see Andrew, face down, unmoving.

Terror
held her in its icy grip and she upped her struggle, but the effort used up her
remaining oxygen.  Her lungs burned.  Robyn fought; against her
captor, against breathing, but to no avail.  It was no glove that covered
her mouth, it was a cloth and she had no choice but to gasp in a breath of the
sickly chemical that it was drenched in.

The
sweet scent overwhelmed her senses as she filled her lungs.  Her head
started spinning and her mind became sluggish.  Her limbs felt heavy so
she stopped kicking.  Unable to control her body, Robyn slumped against
her attacker.

Whoever
held Robyn started putting her down onto the floor as fog crept in around the
edges of her vision.  She was drifting.  She could no longer feel her
limbs.  She couldn’t tell when they touched the hard surface of the
floor.  Desperately clinging on for as long as she could, she looked into
the room, looking for escape even though she knew she couldn’t get to it. 
The last vision she formed was that of a white expressionless face, lit by the
computer.  No mouth, no nose, just black cavernous eyes.  Then the
world went dark.

Robyn was in the
graveyard again.  Around her, rows of stark grey headstones stood in
linear rows like soldiers on procession.  Picked out by moonlight, the
narrow rounded tops of each monolith glowed whilst the fascia’s stood dark and
foreboding.  It was a silent platoon, monochrome and still.  Robyn
ran.

There
was something after her, a creature,
a
monster. 
She couldn’t name it, but she knew it was there.  If she looked behind,
turned around, Robyn knew it would be on her heels; its eyes glowing, its
saliva frothing and dripping from its mouth and its tongue slithering across
sharp teeth.

She
tried to scream but her mouth produced no sound.  The air was too
thick.  How could that be? She ran on.  

Underfoot,
the grass grew with her every step.  Blades penetrated through the soil
and reached endlessly for the light in this dark, this night.  The fronds
snagged against her legs, whipped across her bare skin, and clawed at her
flesh.  Each ravenous ribbon tried desperately to entangle and trap her,
so she lifted her knees high and moved with as much speed as the ground would
allow.

She
could see the great monumental obelisk that showed the exit.  It was right
in front of her.  The black, highly polished granite towered out of the
ground and she was nearly there, she was nearly out, but she fell.

Overpowering
long blades twisted around her legs, knotted around her ankles and brought her
to her knees.  Robyn’s hands hit the ground allowing opportunistic shoots
to wrap tightly around her wrists and bind her to the ground.  They
tightened, cutting into flesh and Robyn watched as thin slivers of blood
trickled down her hands and flowed across her fingers like spidery gossamers of
graffiti that portended her demise.

She
couldn’t move.

The
rasping creature was closer.  It was directly behind her now.  Its
ragged breaths filled her ears and sent shivers into her soul.

Too
afraid to look behind, Robyn looked up.

Carved
deeply, with great precision, into the hard, black granite was a symbol. 
A metre in diameter and surrounded by a perfect circle was an icon consisting
of three spirals. 
The
Triskele
.
 
Robyn stared at the crisp-cut lines, defined so clearly in the moonlight, and
knew that this was indeed the end.

Captured
by the image and tethered into position, Robyn had not yet taken in the writing
beneath the mark.  When she finally lowered her gaze, she saw letters cut
deep and embellished in shining silver.  Emblazoned onto the stone, carved
clearly for all eternity were the immortal words.

R.I.P.

ROBYN
DARROW

Soft footfalls
neared as deep, raspy breaths filled Robyn’s ears.  When the footsteps
stopped, when paw and claw ceased to crush the blades of grass in its motion,
Robyn held her breath and awaited the final blow.

She
heard it lunge.

Numb
and resigned to fate, Robyn stared at the great symbol that would be with her
for all time and watched as thick, red, blood streaked across the mark. 
As slash after slash of the beasts claws cut through her frozen body, Robyn’s
blood spilled and fell in torrents on the stone.  Splashing over the
glistening black, dripping through the indented channels of the carvings and
running and dripping down the stone, the blood covered the legend.

Robyn
finally found her voice and screamed.

Robyn felt like
her senses had been smothered in a thick blanket of nothing.  She knew the
dream was thankfully over because she felt her shudders ebb and the scream
subside, but still she couldn’t move.  Somehow the grass still bound her
limbs.

It
was a sound that tried to break through first.  It was quiet, distant, and
at first she didn’t recognise it but she knew that she should.  What was
that?  She wanted to shake her head and clear the haze but she was afraid,
afraid the beast would return if it knew she was awake.

With
time came clarity and as Robyn stayed still, the fog started to lift from her
addled brain.  The noise she was hearing sounded as if she was listening
from under water, but it was unmistakably a voice.  She couldn’t make out
words, because everything was elongated and twisted, but she knew it was male.

“.
. . .
hurt
.”

It
was so difficult to focus, everything swam in and out.  In one moment her
mind cleared but in the next, the fog clouded over her again.  She hated
it and concentrated hard on that one voice, knowing that it held the power to
pull her out of the darkness.

“Robyn?”
he called, “Robyn?”

Now
she could hear the crackle of a fire and the steady thump of her own
heart.  As she listened, her heart rate picked up.  She opened her
eyes.

Robyn
was in a dark room with her head slumped on her chest.  She could see the
pattern of a carpet beneath her and light danced across it, making shadows come
alive.  It took a few seconds to realise that it was firelight
illuminating her view, the licking flames making the shadows appear to
dance.  She was sat in a chair.  She could feel the hard wood against
her back and legs.

Robyn
lifted her head and groaned as pain shot arrows into her brain and what had
begun as a dull ache, now throbbed.  She was hit by a sudden wave of
nausea as her vision swam.

“Robyn,
are you alright?” She could hear the voice, but her
groggy
mind struggled to comprehend it. The sound was off, not quite like she was
underwater anymore but almost as if the sound was a tape recording that was
playing back too slow.

“Robyn,
are you hurt?” Concern filled his tone, apparent even with the sound distortion. 
Robyn turned to the sound and blinked but couldn’t clear her vision.  She
knew without sight though, that it was Andrew speaking.

Blinking,
trying to banish the oppressive fog that clouded her view, she looked around
her.  A fire blazed in the hearth in front of her, flames licked up
through the air and into the awaiting chimney.  Next to the fire sat an
empty padded chair.  Opposite the chair, sat on a wooden dining chair was
Andrew.

“Are
you hurt?” he repeated as her eyes fell on him. 

He
sat very upright.  He looked awkward sitting so formally, his back rigid
and his arms resting on the arms of the chair from elbow to wrist.  He
also looked odd wearing only pyjama bottoms, his chest and feet
bare
.

Robyn
opened her mouth to speak but her mouth was dry and she was suddenly aware of a
foul taste on her tongue.  She tried to swallow, to wash the unpleasant
tang away but she couldn’t make any saliva. 

“Where
are we?” she croaked.

The
room was unfamiliar.  Heavy velvet curtains covered large windows and dark
wood pieces of furniture filled the space.  On every surface there were
trinkets, ceramics and ornaments.  She couldn’t turn her aching neck to
cover every aspect of her vicinity and she dared not move too quickly because
of the nausea, but she knew that she’d never been in this room before. 
She kept blinking to ward off the grogginess.

“Keep
fighting it Robyn.  It’s okay, it will wear off soon.” Andrew’s voice was
a beacon in the dark.  Robyn turned to look into his eyes knowing that
they would help to pull her mind out of the miasma.  Sure enough, the haze
receded and her mind started to function again.  The nausea subsided but
the pounding in her head only worsened as she became more aware of it.

“Are
you hurt?” Andrew asked again with gentle insistence.

Robyn
focused on herself.  Her neck was sore.  She felt a pain in her hip
and shoulder on one side and her head ached.  But aside from those small
things and her nausea she was fine.

“I
think I’m . . . I think I’m alright.” She struggled to form the words with her
dry throat. “What happened?” 

The
words were accompanied by a vicious throb in her temple and she instinctively
went to raise her hand.  It wouldn’t budge.

Looking
down, Robyn was surprised that her wrists were not bound by sticky blades of
grass.  Instead, they were tied to the arms of the chair with plastic
ties.  Further ties strapped her ankles to the turned front legs. 
Pulled tightly, each strap dug into her skin and allowed very little
movement. 

How
the hell did she get here?  Her body stiffened as her mind
questioned.  And what was she wearing?  Her legs were bare right up
to her thighs where her skin finally met with an oversized white shirt, the
only item of clothing that she was wearing.

It
hit her then: the lights going out, the face in the mask, the hand over her
mouth, the sweet smelling vapour.  Snapping her head up in panic, Robyn
pulled at the bindings.  She yanked, wrenched and tried to get either a
hand or foot free, but the straps remained firm.  The more she pulled, the
more the plastic dug into her flesh but the pain didn’t stop her.

“Robyn.”
Andrew’s voice was calm.  How could he be calm? They had to get out of
there.  She pulled harder, until she whimpered in her own pain.

“Robyn.”
This time the word was louder, demanding.

She
looked up, commanded by Andrew’s tone.

“It
won’t work.”

She
stilled, fear clenching her insides.  Andrew’s feet and arms were also
bound.  In his case, a row of cable ties ran from elbow to wrist and knee
to ankle.

Air
absconded from her lungs until there was nothing left.  As her ribcage
contracted, her organs fell away, one by one into a chasm in her abdomen. 
Understanding finally began to surface through her muddled mind.

She
didn’t want to die.

Forcing
a breath, Robyn found her voice.

“Where
are we?”

“The manor.”
  Andrew’s
disgust was clear.  “James is here, somewhere.  I’ve heard his voice
in the corridors, but he’s not alone.”

Andrew
knew James was involved but it would never have occurred to him that his
grandfather would do this.

“We’re
in trouble.” She held back her tears.  They would do no good now.

“I
think that’s an understatement.  When they realise we’re awake they’re
going to come for us.”  He tried his bonds again, but made no
progress.  “I’m sorry.  I had no idea James was into this kind of
evil.”

“He’s
not.”  She pulled at the restraints until she all but snapped off her own
hand.  “I got it wrong.  They aren’t devil worshippers, Andrew. 
I think it’s much worse and much older than that.”

Footsteps
cut off their conversation.  The door swung inwards, silent, smooth and
suspenseful.  Light, from outside, shone on the wall of the room and the
silhouette of a tall, thin man stood black against white, on the makeshift
screen.

“Ah,
they’re awake.”
Came
a sneer from across the room. 
The scratchy voice did not convey concern.

A
wiry man, tall and gaunt, glared at Robyn with small sunken grey eyes that were
intensely magnified through thick lenses.  The coldness of his stare,
accompanied by a huge smile, which bared his teeth and gums, had her
instinctively pull back in her chair.  As he crossed the room, his
unnerving glower did not falter and the look of glee on his face had Robyn
fighting back bile.  She knew this man.  He was her doctor, Dr
Sanger; the same doctor that had prescribed her the pill only a few weeks
ago.  He had never looked at her so salaciously in the surgery though.

“So
much trouble caused by such a little one,” Dr Sanger held out his hand and
stroked her cheek with dry, brittle fingers.  He had only the thinnest layer
of dry skin and his fingers felt like claws as he grabbed and rubbed at her
face.  Robyn leaned away from him, but his hand followed any move she
made.  Her skin turned to ice under his touch.

“Leave.
 
Her.
 Alone.” Andrew growled.  She
didn’t need to look at him to know that he was angry.

Sanger
lifted his eyes and turned his head, but his fingers still grated along Robyn’s
skin.

“Hmm.
Protective
aren’t
you?” he spat with obvious interest
and clear malice, “and I haven’t even begun, yet.”  A slow smile spread
across his face as he spoke to Andrew, taunting and sinister.  Fear sliced
into Robyn.  This man was deadly.

“Don’t
tease them yet, Douglas.” A female voice stated jauntily and Robyn stilled as
she saw Jane Symonds walk into the room.

Douglas
stopped stroking Robyn’s cheek and instead grabbed her jaw.  His fingers
clenched tightly around her chin and dug into her flesh as he closed in, making
her look away from Jane and focus on him.  His overly magnified, beady,
slate-grey eyes, took in every detail of her features and they gleamed with
pleasure.  Robyn could see his sinister intent as his breath, sweet and
sickly, washed over her from his increasingly eager inhalations.  She
tried to stay still, to show no fear but, when his lips parted and his tongue
slowly rolled over his top lip, she pulled backwards in disgust.