By Stephen Woods
A figure ran through the night, illuminated by the half moon that shone weakly through the thick curtain of white fog. The fog frightened the running man, for he knew it was not naturally occurring. He knew that it was the residue from something far worse than the normal creatures that skulk the night. That creature was what frightened him most of all. He could smell the powers that had conjured the fog, like a normal man would smell smoke from a fire.
He slowed as he started the climb up a hill, the fog now so thick that he could barely see three feet in front of him. The man’s name was Bram, and he couldn’t help thinking that he was making a mistake as he climbed the hill. He had thick black hair, sickly green eyes, and a crooked smile, though it was a grimace that he wore as his feet slipped on the wet grass.
He slowed to a sneak as he reached the top of the hill, and the end of the tree line. In his mind he was haunted by the memory of what Sophia had last said to him. He could hear her voice, ringing loudly around his brain, making him feel as if he was trapped in a giant bell.
“You say you don’t care for your family, yet when they call for you, you run up and kiss the shoes upon their feet.” Sophia had said as Bram stood in the dark room, the golden light cast from the candles and fireplace giving everything an ethereal look. “Don’t be so ignorant as to assume I haven’t noticed, for you insult my intelligence in doing so. You say that you wish to be free of them, and the long shadow that they cast, but every time the opportunity presents itself, you ignore it.” Sophia had turned Bram by the shoulders away from the fire, to face her.
“You are a pawn in their game of chess, Bram, and you play your part even though you’re aware that you’re a sacrificial piece.” Bram had been staring hard at the rug on the floor, a boiling pot of emotions threatening to overflow within him. A silence settled over the room, a thick silence that was only disturbed by the soft crackling of the fire. It probably would have continued had Sophia not touched her hand to his cheek and forced him to look at her. He gazed into her deep blue eyes, the firelight twinkling in her pupils. As he watched a single tear fell from her left eye. The tear rolled down her cheek before falling onto the rug Bram had been staring at moments before.
“If you won’t… I don’t want to spend my life waiting for you, Bram. Once you’ve freed yourself from them, then I’ll be yours, but not before.” She turned, opened the door, and then hesitated on the threshold. And then she’d left.
You are a pawn in their game of chess. He heard it now clear as day, and he knew it to be true… but he also knew that he could never escape them. He’d tried once, when he was younger, but they had followed him. They’d walked right through the walls of the inn he had been staying at and stared long and hard at him all night.
Once you’ve freed yourself from them, then I will be yours. He would never be freed, that was his curse. He was different from everyone else that he’d ever known. No one else was haunted nightly by visions of their parents dying before their eyes. No one else lied to everyone about the fact that they were actually dead. No one else had parents that would stalk them with cold dead stares until he did what they wanted.
No one else saw the ghosts of their parents following them everywhere as clear as day.
They were free willed ghosts, they didn’t follow the rules as Bram understood them, and so they would follow him always. They blamed him for their deaths, so they made his life a living hell. He would never be able to tell Sophia the truth, at least not without being locked in an asylum.
You’re a sacrificial piece. He had often wondered whether he would end up bleeding out onto the cobbles one day, struck down by the ghost of some old murderer. He wondered if his parents would follow him to the land of the dead and beyond.
Suicides, murderers, and the murdered. His parents would appear out of thin air, chalk white with rotting and disheveled clothes, and they would ask him to go to the cemetery, to send the stubborn and the murderers back to where they belonged. After he had done what they wished they would simply turn into a cloud of dirty white, and be taken along by the wind.
Bram stood leaning against a tree, the fog unnaturally thick around him. Just ahead through the fog rested a large black tombstone, lying in the center of the clearing at the top of the hill, just barely illuminated by the grey moon. It was a mass grave, from a battle fought long ago, a battle that was neither won nor lost but ended in both sides wiping each other out. Bram had sent back the stubborn from there before, but never had there been such a strong residue of fog. Bram looked behind him at his parent’s floating shapes; they stared at him with an icy indifference.
“He’s not here, so he must be strong. Where is he?” He asked them.
“He is forgotten in death, but was renowned in life,” his father started, his white face not showing any sign of life other than that of his moving mouth.
“He seeks to find what he knows is behind, he holds in his hands a knife so bright.” Bram’s mother picked up where his father had left off, her voice void of any emotion. They always talked in that way, telling him what he needed to know in the hardest way possible.
“He was betrayed, by one he loved, and now he hunts,”
“For the ancestors of the man whose blood he wants,”
“But it will be difficult to find him, for he is a she.” His father finished.
Bram knew he would get no more from the two of them, as usual there was a supreme lack of information in what they had said, and it made him think again about Sophia and how right she was.
“So I’m looking for a strong woman, with a knife, who wants to kill some unlucky guys’ ancestors. Renowned in life… the only way women ever seemed to be renowned back then is in beauty, so she will be attractive, and therefore will be noticed by many a man on the streets, but where to start looking…” Bram murmured, thinking aloud. He walked up to the tombstone and examined it; it was from two hundred years ago, and looked its age. “The grave says they were buried around sixty years after Brownville was founded, so she’ll be headed for the older buildings. Baker Street would have held the most back then, so I’ll start by looking there.” Bram decided and then ran back down the hill through the thinning fog.
He ran until he reached the edge of the cemetery, slowing to a walk as he passed through the wrought iron gates. It would take him five minutes to get to the main street, and after that another five to make his way to Baker Street.
He passed a couple of creatures of the night and some of the homeless on the way, asking each if they’d seen a ghostly white woman holding a dagger. None of them had, which only made him more nervous. He walked faster; a cold sweat starting to run down his spine.
He had only ever faced a ghost strong enough to leave the cemetery within the hour of its arrival once before. It had been mid-winter, and it had taken him too long to get to the cemetery through the snowfall. Bram had followed the ghost out onto Lincoln Avenue and had fought him in the middle of the street. He’d fought to send him back to where he belonged, and he’d succeeded in the end, though not without injury. He’d had burns on his arms from where the ghost had touched him, but the burns were freezing cold, as if he had been burned by fire made of ice.
He had staggered into Sophia’s house afterwards, hers being the closest, and it was then that she had started trying to convince Bram to stand up to his parents. She had asked him time and time again to say no to them, to not listen to them. She had kept on asking, until it became too much, and she’d broken down in the dark study of Bram’s house, illuminated by the fire, and asked him, for the last time, to leave his parents behind and to venture into the future with her. That had been last night, and he still hadn’t decided what to do.
Bram finally reached the main street, Lincoln Avenue, named after the founder of the town. He fast-walked down it, towards Baker Street, again asking all who he passed, but no one had seen the woman he described.
He was starting to panic, for a ghost to have made it out of the cemetery within half an hour of it returning to the world of the living meant that it was incredibly strong-willed. If he didn’t find and send it back within the hour then the ghost would find its target, and Bram would have real blood on his hands.
He turned left onto Baker Street, the gas lamps lighting the stone footpath. Stone and masonry buildings lay on both sides of the street, some of the oldest buildings in Brownville. Rusting wrought iron fences spiked out towards the gas lamps, giving the buildings a menacing air. But the ghost wasn’t there.
“Damn it. OK, well the second street with the oldest buildings would be… Well it would be Lincoln, but I was just on it!” Bram furrowed his brow and growled in frustration. “OK… well I suppose Queen Street has some pretty old buildings, I’ll try there, and then Bradford since it’s down just a bit further.”
Bram turned around, and then jumped in fright at the sight of his parents, floating inches away from his face; their dead eyes staring emotionlessly back at him. He swore under his breath, walked around them, and then started to run towards Queen Street. He crossed Lincoln into an alley that would lead out onto Ridley Road, which he would then just have to follow for a minute or so before he came to Queen Street.
The sky was turning a dirty grey, and Bram knew that he had to find the ghost soon, or it would be too late. A drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face as he ran, even though he could see his breath puff out in a cold white cloud of moisture.
He turned left onto Queen Street. The street was empty, the road and footpaths illuminated by more gas lamps. Bram grunted and ran down Ridley Road further, towards Bradford. He turned left onto Bradford. It was also empty, except for a drunkard who was singing his way down the middle of the road.
“Damn! Where would she be?” Bram muttered in frustration, his hands pulling at his hair reflexively. “OK, think Bram, think it all over again. She’s in the city, with a knife, to kill someone, to avenge her death on an ancestor…” He paused and continued slower. “But an ancestor wouldn’t necessarily live in an old house, ah you idiot Bram, the one she wants could be anywhere! She could already have caught the guy.” His talking to himself earned him a drunk eyed stare from the man who had been interrupted in the middle of his song.
“Well she didn’t go up Lincoln so she must have continued straight on to the east, so maybe River Street, or Avery Road.” He made up his mind and then turned around and continued to run down Ridley, glancing down each road and street he passed, searching for any sign of the ghost.
He was almost at the end of Ridley when he saw it, a trail of fog rising into the air. He sped up and ran around the corner onto Blanchard Street at full speed.
I’m too late, he thought as he slowed to a stop. The fog continued to swirl into the air, but an apparition did not cause it. It came from a corpse, the fog rising like smoke, and the body even looked like it had been roasted. Bram knew those burns, after having had them on his own arms.
All muscle was missing from the corpse, leaving only blackened skin and bones. The fog mainly streamed from the body’s open mouth, but some also came from the knife wound in its chest.
Bram turned angrily to his parents. “Is there more than one ancestor?” he asked. “Damn it, did you say ancestor or ancestors?”
They didn’t reply, as was their way.
He gritted his teeth and examined the body closer. It was then that he noticed the pocket watch laying in the gutter next to the corpse. He picked it up and turned it over. “Oh no…” he managed to say before leaping to his feet and running with every spare ounce of strength that he had towards Sophia’s house. The corpse had been her father, her only remaining relative that lived in Brownville.
He was two minutes away when he started to run through a thin layer of fog. He was catching up, but he couldn’t help but worry that he was going to be too late. He turned a corner and his breath caught in his throat. The ghost was just a short way down the road in front of him, standing outside Sophia’s house. The front door was wide open.
He was panting heavily but he managed to call out regardless. He didn’t say any words, just screamed, his voice full of emotion, sounding just as tormented as the souls he’d sent back to the grave. The ghost turned to look at him with cold eyes. He’d been right, she was attractive, in a ghostly way. The silver knife in her hand sparkled as she walked slowly towards him.
“Quarrel not be held with thee, do not interfere with my vendetta.” The ghost hissed, her voice sending a chill down Bram’s spine. He had never heard anything other than a scream from a ghost before, with the exception of his parents.
Bram stood a few short feet in front of her, and, taking a deep breath, he pulled his dagger from the sheath at his side. “Bronze be hilt, silver be blade, golden pommel, and the dead will cascade.” He whispered and held the dagger firmly in his right hand. The ghost tilted her head to the side, and then the unthinkable happened. She disappeared.
Bram had just enough time to blink in shock before he was pushed backwards by the pure force of the ghosts pale hands. He landed on his back five feet away, and could feel where his chest had been burnt from the cold fire of her hands. His parents stared down at him from where he lay on his back, and for a moment it looked almost as if their eyes held worry within them.
And then an ice cold hand grasped his throat.
“Now is your time to plea or flee.” The ghost said, though her grip merely tightened, her shining dagger hanging threateningly over Bram’s chest. Bram could feel his skin crackling and worse, he could hear it too. He was going to black out, a part of his brain managed to think as the ghosts dagger pushed down on his soft flesh, burning him with an unbearable pain. He realized with a shock that he was prepared to die. He wasn’t willing, but he was ready. Luckily for him, Sophia wasn’t.
She run up behind the ghost, raised a candlestick, and brought it down with a clank on the ghost’s head. Luckily for Bram it was a silver candlestick, which actually had some effect. The ghost let go and stood up, turning to Sophia, the candlestick lodged halfway through her incorporeal head.
“Say goodbye… for you must die!” the ghost said with such a sudden and fiery hatred that Sophia screamed involuntarily. The ghost ran at her, fog trailing from her extended hands. Bram gasped for breath and scrabbled across the ground in front of him until he snatched his dagger from the cobbles. He stood up on one leg, ignoring the incredible pain in his chest and throat, and threw the dagger just as the ghost raised her own hand for the killing blow.
“Goodbye…” He mumbled and managed a grin as the dagger successfully lodged itself in her back. Her scream was blood curdling, the stuff of nightmares, and then, slowly, it faded. Bram collapsed to the cobbles. It was done, the dagger clattering to the cobblestones as the whole town was smothered in the residue of the ghost’s existence, a thick fog that would no doubt be blamed upon the cold weather to the north. The fog was so thick in fact that Bram couldn’t see Sophia.
He lifted his head, trying to see through the fog, his neck protesting with sharp lances of pain. “Sophia?” He called into the night, his voice hoarse. Sophia took three unsure steps forward, and then rushed to his side. She didn’t ask questions, just held him. He didn’t have any real answers anyway.
His parents were still there, in front of them, which was strange, as they normally dissipated with the death of the ghost.
“Debt is paid,” his father started.
“Your life will not fade,”
“We must leave, no longer can we dwell,”
“We send our greetings from the pits of hell.” They finished together and, for the first time that Bram had ever seen, the pair of ghosts smiled. He felt his wounds heal, and the surprise made him gasp. He looked down at his chest as the icy burn marks faded, when he looked up his parents were gone, and he knew that this time was different, this time it was for good.
“It’s done, I am free…” he whispered into Sophia’s ear as the sun rose and fought to break through the thick fog.
I started writing The Dead Vendetta way back in late 2012, and I made it about half way through before I hit a complete dead end, I was thoroughly stuck, and unsure of how to proceed. This was before I outlined my stories, and while I knew how I wanted it to end, I struggled to figure out a path to lead me to that ending.
Every year I’d reopen the document, give it an update and edit, reach the dead end and… still be blocked. Until somewhere around the end of 2015 that is, when I, finally, managed to finish it.