A Visit to Abbouth, a Horror fanfic

A/N: As are the conditions of this website, 'A Visit to Abbouth' is my intellectual property and is not to be reproduced, in whole or part, as any electronic or physical copy without my express written consent.

A Visit to Abbouth.

--Chapter 1--

Summers, in the United Kingdom, are rarely as perfect as the various television adverts make them appear. Often, they are too short and too hot, or too long and too wet. Sometimes, there is no summer but a long period of autumn, typically characterized in two parts by differences such as ‘windier’ and ‘drier’. Yet at the approach of June 2008, the Cornish coastline was favoured for months by wispy skies, cool breezes and long-lingering sunlit horizons. The village of Abbouth became witness to the end of one of these days: the sphere of Sól gave rise to a full spectrum of colours, mimicked in the glittering ocean that lay beyond the jagged border of uneven cliffs and beaches.

Zaffrie leaned forwards over her Suzuki Bandit, turning attention from the scenery to the termination of the stub of her cigarette. As was her convention, she ground it against the lid of her bike’s petrol-cap, tempting fate more than usual since a wet line of diesel had streaked down the machine’s body not a half-hour before. Her leather trousers creaked as she dismounted, pushing the motorbike closer to Nikras’s Ford Transit.

“Oi, white-van man! When’re you going to be done setting up camp?”

“When are you going to come and help?” Nikras’s words were clogged by a tent-peg as he hammered one of its siblings into the soft dirt. Alastine and Pedge were halfway through setting up the women’s tent, their success fluctuating as much as the helpfulness of the instruction book.

“You know I can’t bend down in these,” she patted her thigh. “I’d never get back up again!”

“Then go get changed. If you won’t help us, go help Jolan get some firewood. We want t’ eat tonight, don’t we?” Zaffrie took a pair of jeans from her backpack and clambered into the back of the van, closing the door behind her.

“Phwoar! Who farted?!” Pedge shouted, elbowing Alastine in good humour.

“That’s the ammonia,” Nikras responded without looking up. “There are natural peat bogs around here – the smell comes from them.” Alastine stopped putting the canvass up.

“Why are we setting up here if there’s that smell? Why can’t we go closer to the coastline?!”

“I’m not paying for a B&B. Besides, the smell’s not that strong; you’ll only smell it when the wind blows our way.”

“Alastine, pass me a peg.” The door of the van pulled open and with a curt wave, Zaffrie disappeared to find Jolan.

The small bundle of sticks did little to fill the tweed carrier bag. The best fire kindling seemed to be in the gardens, sealed off from the main road. Jolan looked up at the white-washed shells that had once been occupied houses, not so many years ago. Windows stood intact or boarded up but there was not a single smashed pane or broken glass bottle in the vicinity. Passing the bins in the street, she noticed that all had top layers of leaves and rainwater, turning any organic material in the containers into a compost-like mulch: nature was reclaiming the village. Oh wait – there’s a kicked-down door… Jolan’s inquisitive mind moved closer to the open portal, shadows refusing to relent where the arrows of evening flame could not penetrate. There was something on the floor, glittering in the obscurity and beyond the reach of the current clarity of her senses: she would need to get closer.

“Boo!”

“Argh!”

“Ha-ha! Gotcha!” Zaffrie’s eyes shifted between the house interior and her companion, pulling her away from the entrance. “Oh, don’t go in there; looks like it’s been used as a drugie-den.” The little shards reflecting light became the shape of needles once her cognition had been given the right direction of enquiry.

“Ah – that’s what they are.”

“You need better glasses, Jolan!”

“Shut up – my eye-sight’s fine… I just can’t see in this light, is all.” Zaffrie grabbed a few strands of Joan’s brown hair and tossed them over the other woman’s shoulder. “I know you wear contacts, anyway.” The shorter woman glanced back into the narcotics-littered building. “You don’t think they’ll come back and attack us while we’re here, do you?”

“Pffrt! Whoever’s been here ain’t coming back. Look at the place – no one’s been here in months, if not years.” Trails of mould crept down the walls, following the paths of water streamlets from a common source dominating the ceiling. The paint and wallpaper had blistered, falling to the floor in strips and flakes and further back it looked as if the ceiling had partially collapsed. Zaffrie turned her attention back to the firewood.

“Is that all you’ve managed to find? C’mon – I saw an old church around here and there’s an oak tree out back: we’ll get what we need there.”

“Are you actually going t’ help or are you going t’ sit there and just watch?” The large oak tree creaked – the only sound, it felt, for miles besides the expansiveness of the distant sea. A frail fence made of wooden posts and a few lines of wire marked out the territory of the Christian dead, their house scrutinizing the newcomers with the intimidation of lengthy inoccupation dulling what had once been clarity and honesty in its many eyes. The nature-reclaimed garden of graves smelled of something old – of baking summer ground, country side… and those unpleasing peat bogs which must have been close by.

Zaffrie aimed her face to the gold-lined streaks of cloud, releasing a puff of smoke.

“I told you, I’ve got my pile already.” A bundle of twigs filled two Tesco’s carrier-bags beside the tumbled gravestone Zaffrie had decided to perch upon. “Hurry up! You’re so slow!” Jolan did not reply, but bent down and grabbed another handful of fire-fuel. She paused before she stood back up again, attention snagged upon the engraved letters in the monolith inches away from her face:

Alexus Smiths

12/05/198931/06/2001

Taken away too young,

May he rest with the angels.

“Only twelve years old when he died…”

“What’s that?” Zaffrie leaned back and another smoky plume flew free on the breeze.

“Nothing!” Jolan called, taking a moment to look at some of the other, more modern gravestones:

Thoris Harrowby

29/02/197603/04/2001

Be careful of your step

Under which I now take sleep:

And know before you go:

What you now sow

Tomorrow will reap.

Rodrigal Tanith

09/08/195222/07/2001

Today for me, Tomorrow for thee.

Harthy Grey

17/10/196311/05/2001

Stranger stop and cast an eye;

As you are now so once was I.

As I am now so you shall be;

Prepare for death and follow me!

“Admiring the grave poetry? Hurry up!”

“Hey, all of these people died in two thousand and one. When did people stop living here?” Zaffrie shrugged in response.

“Two thousand and two, two thousand and three? There’s nothing sinister about this place: people die in car accidents, you know.” She flicked her black and purple punk fringe out of her face, extinguishing the remainder of her cigarette on the new marble marker beside her. Something glowed and flitted behind the oak’s great trunk. Ah! A Jenny-with-a-Lantern!

“Hey, Zaff! Did you just see-?” Zaffrie began to cough and gasp. “Hey, those cancer-sticks are starting to get to you, you know.” Zaffrie was not recovering: the need for air came quick – focussed sharply through hopelessness. “Hey, you okay? Zaff? Zaffrie?” Her face went pale, her right hand smacking against the grave beneath her in frantic thought-loss and a primal need to display her distress. Her body keeled, falling from its seat and disappearing into the neglected grasses. Jolan dropped her firewood. “Zaffrie! Zaffrie!” She shook her limp, unconscious friend. “Zaff! Zaff!” Pedge had a medical kit – he knew how to treat injuries; he might know what this was.

Zaffrie was not recovering. “Hold on – I’ll be right back – I’ll be right back!” Jolan stumbled through the weeds, back onto the pavement and loped towards the last-known location of Pedge, leaving the cataleptic biker unattended.

--End of Chapter 1--