The devils footsteps, p.15
The Devil's Footsteps, page 15
Fighting off the Dark Man couldn’t work, any more than waking from a single nightmare could save you from bad dreams. You had to go deeper, down to the source. Down to the reason.
The Dark Man had grown up around a terrible secret, long buried. But he and the others had dug for the truth, fought their way down to the heart of it and not given up. And now . . . Now it was down to the tortured spirits who lingered in this place.
They’d lain restlessly buried here for decades, anchoring the darkness to a town that had forgotten they even existed. After so long, could they let go of that? Would they? The Dark Man was the only shadow of their existence that remained, and they clung tightly to it – just as Bryan had clung to the torture of reliving what had happened to Adam, because that was better than admitting he was gone.
They watched Nina approach the stones. Ignoring the drama behind her, she hopped up to the footsteps, and made her way along as easily as if they were nothing more than a chalked hopscotch grid. ‘One in fire, two in blood, three in storm and four in flood,’ she half-sang. Bryan fancied he could hear faint, ghostly whispers echoing the words along with her. ‘Five in anger, six in hate, seven fear and evil eight.’
Smokey and Jake exchanged tense glances, and Bryan reached out to grip each of them by the wrist. He mouthed the words along with Nina and the half-heard ghost-voices. ‘Nine in sorrow, ten in pain. Eleven death, twelve life again.’
As they came to the final part, Bryan smiled faintly, and spoke the words aloud. ‘Thirteen steps to the Dark Man’s door – won’t be turning back no more.’ This was it; it was done, it was over. He could feel it.
Nina hopped from the final stone and turned round triumphantly to place her hands on her hips. Then she yelped and scrambled backwards as the earth began to shake.
‘What the hell—?’ Jake began. Smokey started to run across the clearing to join his sister, and Bryan hastily yanked him back from the stones. There was a loud crack, and suddenly the Devil’s Footsteps were sinking into the ground, disappearing from view.
‘Whoa,’ said Smokey, eyes wide. They all stood frozen as the rumbles subsided.
Bryan was the first to move forward. He kneeled beside the newly opened fissure in the earth, and looked down.
It was full of bones. Children’s bones.
Epilogue
Standing there in the woods with the police everywhere felt . . . strange. Like coming full circle. Only now it wasn’t Adam’s disappearance they were investigating, but his finding.
A frighteningly large number of small skeletons had been hauled out of the hole, with more still coming even now. One of them was probably Adam’s; he decided it was easier not knowing which. Perhaps testing might eventually reveal the identities of them all . . . and perhaps somebody, somewhere, might be able to find the names of the children who had first been secretly buried here, and put them to rest at last.
Just as all the other children who’d disappeared in the decades since could finally be laid to rest.
The unnerved-looking detectives who had questioned him and the others were already muttering about cults and serial killers. Perhaps Redford’s disease of the memory still lingered to some extent, or perhaps they would just rather not confront any more difficult truth. Bryan didn’t suppose it mattered; whatever power the Dark Man had held here in the woods was long gone.
So were the other witnesses to its destruction.
Smokey had hauled his little sister back home, Nina protesting all the way because she wanted to stay and see them dig out the skeletons. Jake had been forced to leave not long after, apologetically pleading that his parents had been waiting long enough. He reminded Bryan that he and Smokey would see him at school the next day. It was a strange thought.
And then Bryan was alone, watching the police at their work. Probably they should have chased him away, but nobody did. It was starting to rain.
‘Bryan!’
He started at the yell, almost unfamiliar although he knew the voice that had uttered it. He turned to see his father running towards him, slipping and sliding on the slick mud. It was strange to be grabbed by the shoulders, examined, as if he were there, as if he mattered.
‘Bryan, are you all right?’
‘I, er, yeah, um . . . yeah.’ He stumbled on the question, not expecting it, not sure how to take it.
Just as he didn’t know how to take it when his father tugged him closer with an arm around his shoulder, turned to look at the police excavation. Bryan looked up to see his face creased with fear and worry – dark emotions, but real ones, honest ones, instead of the horrible blank numbness.
‘Your mother’s bringing the car round. She’ll be here any second.’
And Bryan choked on that, too – the idea of his mother not just out of bed on a Sunday but in the car, driving it, moving with a set destination in mind instead of just drifting.
It wasn’t any easier to believe when she came dashing out of the trees, as his father had, to join them. ‘Bryan?’ She sounded scared, shocked, worried, as if she’d woken up in the middle of a nightmare.
And Bryan loved it.
He gestured vaguely towards the policemen, still not totally sure this was even happening. ‘They . . . er, we, er . . . I found the stones. Thirteen stones in the middle of the woods.’
‘Just like you said,’ his father said quietly.
‘So many bones . . .’ breathed his mother, face pinched by distress.
His father closed his eyes. ‘But at least . . . they can be laid to rest now. And even if, even if . . .’ He trailed off, and tightened his grip on Bryan’s shoulder. ‘Well, it’s better than not knowing.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, it is,’ agreed Bryan.
They stood together, in the rain, watching the policemen work. And it didn’t feel like the end of everything, so much as a pause for breath before a new direction.
E E Richardson, The Devil's Footsteps
