Relics (7 page)

Dexter didn’t answer, he merely fixed the other man with an unblinking stare.

‘Or do you think those kids you use believe in it? Have you got one of your little ceremonies coming up again, eh? Is that why you need the heroin? To keep them interested?’ He chuckled.

‘Why don’t you just get out of here, Ferguson?’

‘How many of them are underage? Those two in the other room look pretty young’.

Dexter took a step forward but hesitated when he saw Ferguson lower the knife.

‘I couldn’t care less what you get up to in that wood of yours,’ Ferguson said, walking past the older man. ‘I don’t care how many kids you turn into junkies. It’s more money for me. And if that’s the only way you can get them to go along with you, then fine, that’s your business too.’

He stood by the French doors, gazing out into the darkness, his eyes drawn to the black smudge on the nearby hillside where the wood grew. It lay less than half a mile from the house itself. He ran his thumb slowly along the blade of the dagger, then flipped it into the air, allowing the blade and hilt to spin round before catching it safely. He handed it back to Dexter and headed for the door.

‘I’ll see myself out,’ he said, and Dexter heard his footsteps echoing away down the corridor. He held the dagger before him, then turned and looked up at the mottled sky, where silvery clouds formed a transparent shroud over the moon.

He thought about Ferguson. Arrogant bastard!

He thought about Laura and Gary in the other room, and the others.

His followers.

He smiled crookedly. So what if they only came along for the drugs. They served their purpose. Or at any rate they would. Soon.

Henry Dexter closed and locked the wall safe. Then, replacing the dagger, he wandered off to join his two young companions in the next room.

He could already feel the erection throbbing inside his trousers.

The cellar was large, running beneath the entire house.

As Ferguson descended the stone steps to the lower level a musty odour of urine and straw rose to meet him. The room was empty but for what looked like a set of wall bars in one corner and, against the far wall, two steel cages. The stone floor was a strange rust-red colour. Ferguson paused by the two enclosures and smiled.

Chained inside each one was a dog.

The first was jet black, its coat thick and lustrous, but unable to disguise its powerful, brutish build. The animal was a pit bull terrier. As Ferguson knelt close to the cage it strained against its chain and began barking at him, but it was the animal in the next cage that now claimed his attention.

It was the same breed as its neighbour but much larger, more striking and more fearsome in appearance. The dog was an albino. Its thin coat was brilliant white, in stark contrast to the bloodied pink of its piercing eyes. The offspring of Ferguson’s incestuous mating of its sister pup and its own father, the creature was almost insane and that madness showed in the way it launched itself at the man who had come to feed it. But Ferguson merely smiled and looked deep into those watery pink eyes, transfixed by them, still amazed at the ferocity of this particular dog. He went to a small portable fridge in one corner of the room and pulled out two metal trays, both full of raw meat.

‘Those bloody dogs eat better than we do.’

He allowed himself only a perfunctory glance in the direction of the voice. Swaying uncertainly at the top of the stairs was his wife, Carol. At twenty-eight, she was four years younger than her husband, but already her face was heavily fined. What make-up she wore was clumsily applied, particularly to her lips. Heavy-breasted and a little too large around the hips, she wore a skirt that was shiny through too much wear and too tight to fasten without strain at the waist.

She watched silently as her husband laid the meat trays in front of the cages. The two dogs, aroused by the smell of food, began barking loudly.

Ferguson took a lump of the dripping raw flesh and tossed it into the albino’s cage. The animal snapped it up and chewed hungrily, some of the dark juice dripping from its jaws.

Carol began a faltering journey to the cellar floor, putting out a hand to steady herself.

‘What do you want?’ Ferguson asked. ‘Run out of booze, have you?’

She stood quietly for a moment, watching the ravenous beasts as her husband continued to feed them scraps of meat. The fetid stench of excrement and straw that filled the cellar made her cough.

‘It stinks down here,’ she mumbled, stepping closer to the cages, her eyes fixed on the dogs.

‘Nobody asked you to come down here,’ he hissed. ‘Go on, piss off back to your bottle.’

‘You bastard,’ she said and tried to hit him, but Ferguson was too quick for her. He spun round and lashed out, catching her across the face with the back of his hand. The impact of the blow sent her sprawling and, as she scrambled to her feet, she tasted blood in her mouth. The blow had loosened one of her front teeth and she prodded it tentatively with her tongue. The pain galvanized her into action, and with fists flailing she ran at Ferguson.

He grinned, as if her onslaught were some kind of challenge. He ducked under her clumsy swing and grabbed her hair, several tufts coming away in the process.

The dogs were barking madly now, making an unbearable din in the confined space of the cellar. The sound reverberated around the walls until it became deafening.

Carol screamed and struck out at her husband again but he caught her wrist, squeezing tightly, dragging her down to the floor with him. He was smiling insanely as he hauled her across the ground, and her eyes bulged in terror as she saw what he intended to do.

He guided her hand towards the bars of the albino dog’s cage, laughing as the ferocious animal barked and snapped at the offered appendage.

Carol shrieked as she felt her hand touch the cold steel of the bars. She made a fist to prevent her husband from pushing the hand through but he slammed it repeatedly against the bars until her knuckles bled and her fingers went limp. The dog, already going mad in its eagerness to reach the hand, became completely frenzied at the sight of the blood which dripped from the gashed knuckles.

Carol could feel its hot breath only inches away from her, and the foul odour of it made her want to vomit.

‘It’ll have your fucking hand off in five seconds flat,’ rasped Ferguson, keeping her pinned helplessly against the bars. ‘Want me to show you?’ He jerked her hand closer to the foaming jaws of the crazed dog.

Both dogs kept straining violently against their chains, and their barking seemed to grow louder and louder until Carol was aware of nothing else. She felt herself blacking out, but Ferguson pulled her head back and with his free hand tugged her away from the cage. Her blouse ripped and her large breasts were exposed. She could feel his erection pressing against her as they grappled on the floor and his hands squeezed her breasts roughly, leaving red marks around the nipples.

She tried to push him off but he was too heavy for her. She felt his other hand reaching beneath her skirt, tearing at her knickers. He ripped them off with one savage grunt and flung them aside.

‘Next time I’m going to let them tear your fucking hand off,’ Ferguson said, his breath coming in short gasps. He stared down at Carol and she tried one last time to slither away from him, but he pinned her beneath him with one powerful arm, releasing his bulging organ from his trousers with his free hand and then forcing her legs apart.

The black pit terrier managed to slip its chain and it slammed into the bars only inches from Carol’s face, its frenzied barks ringing in her ears, its saliva spattering her.

‘Looks like he wants to join us,’ laughed Ferguson, and he drove into her savagely, making her shriek with the sudden sharp pain. He leant forward to kiss her and, as he did, she caught his bottom lip between her teeth and bit hard, feeling the fleshy bulge split. Blood filled her mouth and she spat it at him, but Ferguson ignored the discomfort. He pinned both her arms to the filthy floor, wet with dog urine, and pounded into her, his deep grunts of pleasure mingling in her ears with the noise of the animals.

She closed her eyes tightly as she felt him tense, then a moment later she heard his groans as he reached his climax and his thick fluid filled her, some of it spilling out to mix with the reeking mess which coated the floor.

He withdrew almost immediately, rolled off her and pushed his shrinking penis back inside his trousers.

Carol rolled onto her side, the pain from her broken tooth and the taste of blood making her feel sick. Ferguson prodded her with the toe of his boot.

‘Now get out,’ he chuckled. ‘Go on, good dog.’ He began to laugh, his raucous guffaws punctuated with threatening snarls from the two dogs.

‘You’re a bastard,’ she grunted.

‘Get out,’ he rasped.

The dogs continued to bark.

‘What is it?’ Cooper wondered aloud.

‘I don’t know,’ Perry confessed, ‘but I spotted it the day we first found the skeletons.’

Kim approached the slab of stone and touched it cautiously.

‘Perhaps it leads into another tunnel,’ she suggested. ‘Like the others.’

Most of the children’s skeletons had been moved away from the slab of rock, and the three archaeologists stood within a few feet of this latest puzzle.

‘We’ve got to move it,’ Cooper said. ‘At least it looks much lighter than the circular circular stones at the tunnel entrances.’

As he spoke, the lights in the roof of the tunnel flickered momentarily, dimming until the narrow passage was bathed in sickly yellow, and then glowed brightly once more. Kim stepped back as the two men moved forward to get a good grip on the stone. At a signal from Cooper they wedged their hands behind the rock and simply tipped it forward, surprised at the ease with which it was dislodged. Slivers broke off from the edges as it hit the floor of the tunnel.

Kim picked up one of the gas lamps lying close by and held it above her head, advancing into the yawning blackness behind the slab.

She stiffened, her body quivering almost imperceptibly as if a high voltage charge were being pumped through it. She sucked in a breath but it seemed to stick in her throat, and for terrifying seconds she found that she couldn’t breathe. The skin on her face and hands puckered into goose-pimples and a numbing chill enveloped her. A small gasp escaped her as she actually felt her hair rising, standing up like a cat’s hackles. She swayed uncertainly for a moment as the feeling seemed to spread through her whole body, through her very soul, and Kim clenched her teeth together, convinced that she was going to faint. On the verge of panic, she screwed up her eyes until white stars danced before her. Her throat felt constricted, as though some invisible hand were gradually tightening around it. Her head seemed to be swelling, expanding to enormous proportions until it seemed it must burst.

And somewhere, perhaps in her imagination, she thought, she heard a sound. A noise which froze her blood as it throbbed in her ears.

A distant wail of inhuman agony which rose swiftly in pitch and volume until it was transformed into something resembling malevolent laughter.

Kim felt her legs weaken and she was suddenly aware of strong arms supporting her.

The lamp fell from her grip and shattered.

Voices rushed in at her from the gloom.

‘. . . Kim, can you hear me? . . .’

‘. . . What happened to her? . . .’

‘. . . Fainted . . .

Everything swam before her, as if she were looking through a heat haze. Gradually, objects and faces took on a familiar clarity once more.

‘Kim, are you all right?’ Cooper asked, feeling the deathlike cold which seemed to have penetrated her flesh.

‘I must have fainted,’ she said. ‘Blacked out for a second . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

They sat her on the ground for a moment and she rubbed a hand over the back of her neck in an effort to massage away the dull ache which had settled there. After a moment or two it began to disappear.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened.’ She smiled weakly, almost embarrassed at the little episode. Then, more sombrely, she asked, ‘Did you hear that noise?’

‘What noise?’ asked Perry.

She opened her mouth to speak, to try to describe the keening wail, but then thought better of it. She must have imagined it, or perhaps it had been the sudden outrushing of the air inside the . . .

Inside the what?

What was this place anyway?

As she regained her senses, she, like her two companions, gazed around at their latest discovery.

‘What the hell is this?’ murmured Perry, playing his torch beam through the gloom.

They were standing inside a chamber of some kind. It was roughly ten feet square, resembling an underground cell. But the walls were completely covered, every square inch of them, with symbols and hieroglyphics. Many were obscured by dirt and grime but they were there nonetheless, carved into the rocks and dirt. But it wasn’t the symbols which captured Kim’s attention. She swallowed hard, unable to remove her gaze from the sight before her.

The entire room was littered with skulls.

Hundreds of them.

And from their size they obviously belonged to children.

‘So this is where they hid them,’ Cooper said, his thoughts travelling the same route as Kim’s. ‘The bodies in the tunnel, the heads in here.’

‘It doesn’t look like a burial chamber,’ Perry offered. ‘Besides, what is all this writing on the walls?’

As well as the skulls, the chamber contained a number of swords and spears, a few pots and some other receptacles. But it was a pile of stone tablets which now attracted Kim’s attention.

Lying amongst the other relics, each one was about six inches long, hewn from heavy rock and inscribed with a series of letters, many indistinguishable because of the dirt which caked them. There were a dozen of them.

‘This place obviously belonged to the
áes
dana
, the wise men of the tribe,’ said Cooper. ‘Maybe we’ll find some answers here.’