The Peregrines

Chapter 35

{Pic is mine}

{ Edited - 27th April, 2024 }

As the rain pounded on every door and window in the town, we hurriedly made our way through the flooded streets. The cottages were all locked and shuttered, with everyone seeking shelter inside. We ran past the debris of scattered roof tiles, a forlorn sheep crying in the rain, and an overflowing outhouse. Finally, we reached our destination - the fishmonger's shop. Despite the locked door, Bronwyn forcefully kicked it open with two powerful thuds.

"Anita, can you somehow make a flame by any chance?" Jake asked.

"Maybe, but I'll need Emma to blow on the spark," I said

"In that case, here's a torch," Jake handed me a massive stick.

"No, you hold it, I need to throw a bolt at it, and since there is a wild storm here, I might as well use it," I said as I rubbed my hands together to warm them up, then I raised my hand in the air, closed my eyes tightly, and focused on feeling the warmth. After just 10 seconds, I felt a faint sensation of heat. It was sufficient for me to continue working with the connection. I then placed my palms directly on top of the torch that Jake was holding., although, I met my first hazard.

"Enoch move," I snapped. As Enoch took a step, a lightning bolt narrowly missed his ear, singeing off a bit of his hair, before striking the torch. "Emma!" I stared directly at her. Emma exhaled deeply and brought the flame back to life.

"What are you?" Enoch asked.

"Atmokinesis, what are you?" Although I already know the answer to that question.

"Dead-riser, what else?"

"Sweety, it was a rhetorical question, I already know what you are," I smirked.

"Guys, come on," said Jake as he guided us inside the store, taking us around the counter and through a door that had been marked by rust over time. As we stepped onto the other side, we found ourselves in a small icehouse, a simple shed with a dirt floor and a tin roof. The walls were constructed from rough-cut planks, some of which had separated like decayed teeth, allowing raindrops to seep through. Inside the room, numerous rectangular troughs were placed on saw-horses, each one filled with ice.

"Which one's he in?" Enoch asked.

"I don't know," Jake said.

Emma grabbed the flashlight from Jake and illuminated our path as we strolled through the rows of troughs, wondering which one could possibly contain something other than dead fish. Unfortunately, they all appeared identical, like open caskets made of ice. It seemed like we would have to inspect each and every one of them until we discovered what we were looking for.

"Not me," Bronwyn said, "I don't want to see him. I don't like dead things."

"Neither do I, but we have to," said Emma. "We're all in this together."

We all picked a trough and started digging like dogs unearthing a hidden treasure, our hands filled with ice spilling onto the ground. I had almost finished one when my fingers began to numb, but then I heard Bronwyn scream. I looked over to see her backing away from a trough, hands covering her mouth.

We all gathered around to see what she had discovered. Sticking out from the ice was a frozen hand with hairy knuckles. "I daresay you found our man," Enoch said, As we watched in awe, he carefully chipped away at the ice, gradually uncovering an arm, then a torso, until the entire battered body of the man known as "Martin" was revealed.

It was a truly dreadful sight. His limbs were twisted in such unnatural positions. His body had been sliced open and emptied, with ice now filling the void where his vital organs once were. As his face became visible, there was a collective gasp. One side was marked by a bruise, a deep purple contusion that resembled a shredded mask.

The second person had just enough intact features to identify him - a jaw covered in a speckled beard, a patchwork of cheek and brow, and one vacant, glassy green eye. He was dressed in nothing but boxer shorts and tattered remnants of a terrycloth robe. It was impossible to believe that he had walked alone to the cliffs at night in such attire. It was clear that someone, or perhaps something, had forcefully brought him there.

"He's pretty far gone," said Enoch, evaluating Martin like a surgeon would evaluate a patient with little hope of recovery. "I'm telling you now, this might not work."

"We got to try," Bronwyn said, stepping bravely to the trough with the rest of us. "We come all this way, we at least got to try."

Enoch unzipped his raincoat and retrieved a wrapped heart from a hidden pocket. The heart resembled a burgundy catcher's mitt, neatly folded in on itself. "If he wakes up," Enoch said, "he ain't gonna be happy. So just stand back and don't say I didn't warn you."

Everyone except Enoch took a big step back, but Enoch fearlessly approached the trough and dipped his arm into the icy water that filled Martin's chest. He swirled it around as if he were searching for a can of soda in a cooler. After a while, he seemed to find something and triumphantly lifted the sheep heart above his head.

Enoch's body experienced a sudden convulsion, causing the sheep heart to start beating and spraying out a mist of bloody pickling solution. Enoch took quick, shallow breaths as if channelling something. I carefully observed Martin's body for any sign of movement, but he remained motionless. Slowly, the heart in Enoch's hand began to slow down and shrink, its colour fading to a blackish-grey resembling meat left in the freezer for too long.

Enoch tossed it down onto the ground and extended his hand towards me. I retrieved the heart I had been safeguarding in my pocket and handed it over to him. He repeated the exact same sequence, with the heart pulsating and spluttering for a moment before gradually fading away like the previous one. Then, for the third time, he performed the same action, employing the heart he had previously given to Emma.

Bronwyn's heart was the last remaining hope for Enoch. With a fierce determination, he lifted it above Martin's coffin, his face filled with a newfound intensity. Gripping it tightly, he seemed ready to break through. The heart started to quiver like an engine on overdrive, and Enoch let out a shout. "Rise up, dead man. Rise up!"

I noticed a quick movement. There was a change under the ice. I leaned in closer, eager to see any movement. For a while, there was silence, but then the body jerked violently, startling us all. Emma screamed, and we all stepped back. When I looked again, Martin's head had turned towards me, his eye focusing on me.

"He sees you!" Enoch cried.

"Jake?" I said as I looked at him and back at Martin.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it," said Jake as he leaned in. The ice slipped from Martin's grasp, causing his hands to shake in the air briefly before landing on Jake's arm.

His mouth opened and his jaw dropped. Jake crouched down to listen, but I doubt there was anything to hear. I thought to myself, his lungs must have collapsed, and Jake moved in closer. The rest of us gathered around Jake and Martin.

"Yes," Jake said as if he was answering a question.

Pause . . .

"Tell me what happened," Jake said. "Can you remember?"

There was another pause. The wind whistled through the gaps in the walls.

"Say it again. Please, Martin," said Jake.

Pause . . .

"Who."

Pause . . .

"You mean Oggie? Your uncle?"

Pause . . .

"Who did, Martin?"

Jake glanced over at Enoch, who simply nodded. I couldn't quite decipher the signals they were exchanging, but this chat seemed . . . eerily to me.

I noticed Martin's eye twitching under his eyelid. His lips were shaking, and during the short pause, I glanced at the children. Emma appeared to have something on her mind, so she leaned over to Jake and whispered loudly enough for all of us to hear. "What's he saying?"

"I don't know," Jake said as he looks back at us all. "But it sounds like a poem."

Martin man began to speak loud enough now that everyone could hear—"Blackly he reposes, tender face the colour of soot, withered limbs like veins of coal, feet lumps of driftwood hung with shrivelled grapes," he said. "Oh Jake, I took such good careful care of him!" he said. "Dusted the glass and changed the soil and made him a home—like my own big bruised baby. I took such careful care, but—" He began to shake, and a tear ran down his cheek and froze there. "But he killed me."

"Do you mean the bog boy? The Old Man?" Jake asked.

"Send me back," he pleaded. "It hurts." his voice fading again.

Jake turned to Enoch, hoping for some assistance. However, Enoch appeared to tighten his grip on his heart and shook his head. "Quick now, mate," he said.

Jake suddenly turned to us. "A hollowgast did this to him," He said. "It's somewhere on the island."

My heart suddenly sank. "Ask him where," said Enoch.

"Martin, where. I need to know where you saw it."

"Please. It hurts."

"Where did you see it?"

"He came to my door."

"The old man did?"

His breath caught in an unusual way. Although it was difficult to meet his gaze, I pushed myself to do so, tracing the movement of his eye as it shifted and fixed on something behind me. "No," he said. "He did."

Suddenly, a beam of light shone upon us and a booming voice echoed, "Who's there!"