Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (12 page)

Rose Tisser

1959

I'm woken by a scream. Or am I? Maybe it was part of a dream...

It's morning, and for a moment I'm not sure where I am, but then I realize I'm behind a bush near the beach, a few hundred meters from the old lighthouse. How did I fall asleep? I get to my feet and look around, but there's no sign of Jess anywhere, but somehow things don't seem so scary in the early morning light so I step out onto the beach and stumble over to the lighthouse.

"Jess!" I call out, although I know there's a good chance she just went home without me. That'd be typical Jess; in fact, it's the most likely explanation by far. She's probably at home in bed right now, having assumed I'd abandoned her. No. Wait. Would she really think I'd do that? She knows me too well. Surely she'd come looking for me? And how did I manage to fall asleep, when I was scared and cold?

"Jess!" I shout again as I reach the lighthouse. I walk all the way around, and I look down by the shore, but there's no sign of her. Eventually I notice that the door to the lighthouse is ajar. I walk over. Wouldn't they keep the door locked, even if the place is abandoned? I pull it open and step inside.

"Jess!" I shout as I see her flat on her back on the floor, in the middle of the large round room. I rush over, and thank God she opens her eyes and looks up at me. "Are you okay?" I ask.

She stares at me for a moment. "I'm cold," she says.

"Me too," I say. "I slept on the beach. Did you sleep
here
?"

She sits up and looks around. "I suppose so."

"What happened?" I ask. "Did you see the lights?"

She seems uncertain and confused. "What lights?" she asks.

I look into her eyes. They look dull. In fact, the whole of her looks dull, as if she's in a shadow that's fallen only over her. "Do you remember last night?" I ask. "We came to look at the lights?"

She looks around at the large, empty, high-ceilinged room. "It's so crowded in here," she says.

I follow her gaze. We're alone. "What do you mean?" I ask.

She smiles. "Not here, silly," she says, and it's the first time she's sounded like the real Jess so far this morning. She sits up suddenly. "Who
are
they?" She's looking around wildly.

"Who's who?" I ask.

She looks at me. "Are there people outside?" she asks.

"I don't think so," I say. "I hope not!"

She closes her eyes. "You don't hear that?"

I listen, but there's nothing at all to hear.

"All those voices," she continues. "Don't you hear them?"

I stare at her. Something's clearly wrong.

"Never mind," she says suddenly, getting to her feet. "We... should... be..." She blinks a lot, as if something's wrong. "We should be getting home." She turns to me and smiles. "That's right, isn't it? We should be getting home."

Suddenly she looks past me, and I realize she's noticed something. Turning, I'm shocked to see Patrick standing over by the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, a little disturbed by the darkness of Patrick's expression. It's so strange to encounter him in this manner, and I can't help wondering how he knew to find us here.

"The vampire has come to inspect his handiwork," Jess says, her voice suddenly taking on a darker, angrier tone.

"Vampire?" I stare at her, utterly flummoxed by the words coming from her mouth. "Jess -"

"Ask him," she hisses, snarling at me as if she's been possessed by some kind of righteous fury. It's as if Jess has become someone else entirely. "For thousands of years we were loyal servants to the vampires,"she continues, her voice strangely halting, as if she's struggling to keep the words coming. "We were their guardians and watchers, and we kept watch over Gothos."

"What are you talking about?" I ask, looking at Patrick for some kind of clue. "What are you two up to? Are you trying to make me look silly?"

"The Sentinels were so loyal," Jess hisses. "We laid down our lives thousands of times over. And then we were betrayed by the last vampire, after we had given everything we had to give."

"Vampire?" I say. "What are you talking about, Jess?" I look down at the ground. "Let's find this ring," I say, hoping to get things back on-track, hoping to make things normal again. Jess is clearly playing a little joke on me, but I must say that I don't like the timing.

"We have been abandoned," says Jess. "Left to die,without even our bodies. But we will not die. We will take a new body and we will recover. We will take enough bodies to hold all of us."

I step back a little. "Jess, you're scaring me."

"Jess is scared too," says Jess. "The voices scare her.
Our
voices scare her. Tens of thousands of us in here, all in one weak body. When we entered last night, we pushed her into the darkness." She steps toward me and holds out a hand. "We need to share."

She goes to put a hand on my shoulder, but I duck away.

"Patrick!" I say. "I think we should go."

"We would take his body if we could," Rose says, still coming toward me slowly as I back against Patrick. "A vampire's body is a miracle, but we know we're not strong enough. A human body will suffice."

"Do something, Patrick," I say. I turn to run to the door, but I see it's shut now. I run over anyway, only to find that somehow it's been locked.

"He can't help," Jess says. "Vampires are forbidden to kill Sentinels. He can only watch. Besides, we are the last of our kind, and he has already committed genocide once." She smiles at Patrick. "I don't think he has the stomach to destroy another species."

I look at Patrick. My sweet, gentle Patrick. None of this can be true. I'm quite certain that this is one of Jess's sick jokes.

"Ask him why he doesn't speak," Jess says with a smile on her face, as if she's taunting him. "He destroyed them all, even though we tried to stop him." She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, as if she's in pain. "This body will not hold us all." She fixes me with a calm stare. "You must share the burden."

With that, she lunges at me and I barely get out of the way. Without waiting for Patrick to help me, I run across the large circular room and through a small wooden door, which turns out to lead into nothing more than a storeroom. I turn to see Jess almost catching me, so I slam the door shut and pull a table across it as she tries to push the door open.

"It's no use resisting," Jess says from the other side of the door. "You already have some of us inside you. Every time I touched you today, more of us moved into your body. Surely you felt us?"

I look at my hand; the hand Jess held on the way here. And then I hear them: the voices. Quiet, almost imperceptible, but definitely there, voices in my mind that aren't my own. They're all saying the same thing: Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.

Sophie

Today

I hate funerals. Not that I've ever been to one before, but I've seen loads of them on TV and I hate the idea of the whole thing. Putting someone in the ground forever, so they can rot in the dark, seems like a pretty cynical way to get rid of the dead to me. I swear, when I die I just want to be left out behind a rock somewhere in the wild. Whatever wants to eat me, can eat me. A funeral is the last thing I'd ever want. But I came here because of Adam, because John Tisser was his grandfather and if I were Adam's girlfriend - which I'm not, but I could be soon - I'd have to be here with him.

It's mostly old people at the funeral. Apart from Adam, the only person I recognize is John's widow, who - surprise, surprise - gives me a look of pure hatred. I know she blames me for her husband's death. She thinks he'd still be alive if I hadn't turned up and asked awkward questions. And now I'm here holding her grandson's hand. Yeah, she loves me.

"This'll be over soon," Adam whispers to me as we sit waiting for the ceremony to begin. "We can go and hang out somewhere after if you like."

"Yeah," I say. To be honest, I just want to be alone, but I feel like Adam needs some company right now, so I'll probably spend the rest of the day with him. I guess my investigation into Patrick's past can wait a little longer.

When the ceremony starts, it's very functional and bare, and quite moving. The priest talks about John Tisser's time in the military, making out to be quite a hero, and he makes a brief reference to the loss of Rose all those years ago. While he continues talking, I casually glance over my shoulder and see, to my shock, that Patrick is sitting at the back of the church. I can't help looking at his face and wondering why he's here. Guilt? Did he scare John Tisser to death and, if he did, did he do it on purpose? Or is he here to gloat? I stare at him, and suddenly I realize that he's just staring at the coffin.

I turn back to look at the front of the church. John Tisser's coffin has an open casket, but I've managed to avoid going up to look inside. I've never seen a dead body, not like this anyway, and I'm not sure this is the right time to get curious.

After the funeral, I excuse myself from Adam for a moment and go to find Patrick. There's no sign of him, though, and it quickly becomes clear that he slipped away early. I go around the cemetery, just in case he's hiding somewhere, but he's really gone. Nice of him to bother stopping, but then again, why would he want to wait behind to see me? It's not like we could have a chat, is it?

"Sophie!" Adam calls over to me.

I turn and see he's walking over to me with an old man.

"Sophie, this is Henry," Adam says. "Adam, this is Sophie, the girl I was telling you about."

Henry, who looks to be well into his 90s, nods at me. He's leaning a little on a walking stick, and he seems out of breath from the short walk. We go and sit on a small bench by the cemetery wall.

"I told Henry that you were interested in Jess Harper and Rose," Adam says. "Henry knew them."

"I knew them very well," Henry says. His jaw constantly shakes, and he rarely looks directly at either of us, preferring to stare at the grass by the bench.

"I'm sorry they died," I say.

He nods.

"Do you know what they were doing up at the lighthouse, the day they died?" I ask.

"They were there to meet a man," Henry says. "A nice man. I knew him too."

I pause for a moment. I'm not sure I really want to ask the next question, because either way it's going to change how I see things. "Do you know his name?"

Henry nods. "Patrick."

My heart leaps up, does a little pirouette, and then lands back in its cavity. "And this was 1959?" I ask, trying to keep from trembling. I feel like I'm right on the verge of something huge.

Henry nods.

"What was he like?" I ask.

Adam interrupts. "Do you think
he
killed them?"

"He seemed nice," Henry says. "Very quiet. Never said a word. Just seemed to be there with the girls sometimes. Just following them around. They liked him. Handsome chap."

Adam looks at me for a moment. "Did you see him again after the night Jess and Rose went to the lighthouse?" he asks Henry, who shakes his head. "Didn't you tell the police about this Patrick guy?" Adam says.

"They knew," Henry says. "He was nowhere to be found. No-one knew who he was. Some people thought maybe he was a drifter, except he didn't seem the type."

"Henry," I say, "do you think Patrick killed Jess and Rose?"

Henry shakes his head. "I don't know for sure," he says. He pauses. "Maybe he killed Jessica. Maybe. Awful what happened to her. I saw the photos of the crime scene. So much blood." He makes proper eye contact with me for the first time. "Bones ripped from the flesh."

"But Rose's body wasn't there?"

Adam interrupts again. "Her blood was, though, wasn't it?"

Henry nods. "Young man, would you be so kind as to leave me alone with this young lady for a few minutes? I promise I won't molest her."

Adam nods, although he seems a little annoyed. "I'll go and check on my grandmother," he says before walking away.

"Did you look at John Tisser's body today?" Henry asks.

"No," I say. "I don't really like dead bodies much."

"That man had a terrible burden," Henry says. "Now there's no-one else to carry the burden, I don't know what will happen."

We sit in silence for a moment. "Why did you want to talk to me alone?" I ask.

Henry reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a slip of paper, on which the name Janet Smith has been written in scratchy handwriting. He hands the paper to me, and looks at me earnestly.

"Who's Janet Smith?" I ask.

"Janet Smith is a woman who has been at St Winifred's Nursing Home for half a century," he says. "No-one visits her. Well, not these days. Not now that John's dead." He sighs. "Don't feel too sorry for her, though. She doesn't know if anyone's there or not."

"That's sad," I say, not quite sure why he's telling me this. "Does Janet Smith know something about what happened?"

At this, Henry smiles. "I should imagine so," he says. "Janet Smith is not her real name." He takes a deep breath. "Rose Tisser is very much alive, living in room 301 of the retirement home under the name Janet Smith. And now that her brother has passed away, I imagine she's available for visits whenever you're ready."