I'd like to say that I slept like a baby but I didn't. My dreams
were tortured by the haunting sound of an infant crying. I searched
everywhere that I could in the dream but I couldn't find her. I
knew she was a girl. I don't know how I knew it, instincts I guess.
One minute her crying was close to me, the next it was miles away,
just a whisper of distress on an icy wind which whistled through
the derelict structure. It had been a hotel once. It was built to
mimic a castle, with towers and turrets, battlements and arrow
slits. Though its shape was imposing against the seascape, it was
painted white, like a vision from a fairytale. Once a place full of
laughter, wedding feasts and christening parties but now in my
dreams, it was a burnt out shell perched on a rocky outcrop
overlooking a stormy sea. The white fascia had turned to mottled
green, blistered and peeling. Smoke-burns snaked from the empty
windows like eyelashes above blackened sockets. They seemed to
offer a view into an infinite black abyss. Nettles and thorny weeds
pushed their way up through the crumbling floors. When I looked
towards the ceilings, I could see an angry sky through the gaping
holes in the roof. The slates and rafters had collapsed, leaving
the timbers hanging dangerously. Lightning forked earthwards,
momentarily illuminating the heavy black clouds like a massive
camera flash. The ear-splitting thunder threatened to shake the
decaying building to the ground. Echoes of the past reverberated
from the crumbling walls, ghostly laughter mixed with sounds from
the past; tears of joy and tears of sadness. As I walked through
the remnants of the bar, I glimpsed the ghostly hotel owner sitting
alone on a stool crying into his whisky. His head lolled onto his
right shoulder, his broken neck no longer capable of supporting its
weight. His eyes bulged almost ready to pop and his tongue hung
from the corner of his mouth like a fat black slug. He didn't seem
to notice that the wooden bar was nothing but a charcoaled frame,
the optics long gone, the staff moved on to different jobs years
ago. Next to him was the rope with which he eventually hung himself
to escape the pain of losing his philandering wife and the
insurmountable debts that she had left behind. Although it was a
dream, I shouted at him none the less. I needed help to find the
girl. No matter how loud I shouted, my pleas for help went unheard.
I felt the desperation of the years gone by, dragging me down like
a weight around my waist, slowing me down as I ran in search of the
source of the tortured cries of the infant. I knew the child was a
stranger to me and yet something told me that there was a
connection somewhere. I had to find her. Every door was locked and
every window barred. When a corridor opened in front of me, I ran
as fast as the weight would allow me but I never made any progress.
It was like running on a giant treadmill through mud. The desperate
sobbing was ripping my heart out. I had to find her. My nightmare
was interspersed with gravelly laughter from behind me. It was evil
laughter whispering in my ear, a ghostly echo like an itch that you
can't scratch. I knew it was Jennifer Booth who plagued my dreams
but every time I turned around, she was gone, the laughter replaced
by the soul destroying sobbing of a baby in distress and a
lingering stench of decomposition. It was the same dream every time
I closed my eyes. I couldn't stop the landlord slipping the noose
around his neck and I couldn't find the child. My frantic search
left me exhausted when I awoke. It seemed that there truly was no
rest for the wicked and wicked was what I had become
General
Imprint: |
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2013 |
First published: |
October 2013 |
Authors: |
Conrad Jones
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 17mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
294 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4928-6051-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
Genre fiction >
Horror & ghost stories
|
LSN: |
1-4928-6051-4 |
Barcode: |
9781492860518 |
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