Hell's Rayne (Book 1)

Chapter 19

The village was pitch black, the blinding security lights that flooded the pub's car park had played merry hell with my night vision and apparently street-lights were a newfangled idea that hadn't get encroached on the quaint country way of living. Once my eyes had taken a few moments to adjust, the darkness itself wasn't so much a problem, it was the fact that everything suddenly looked quite different than it did by the light of day. I'd only spent time outside in the village itself during the hours of daylight – or dying daylight at the very least – but the complete darkness left me in quite a quandary; nothing looked familiar. I was suddenly not at all sure which way I needed to go to get to Jesse's.

I walked, on instinct, across the road from the pub and took a left onto one of the narrow streets that led away from the main road; that was about all I could remember from my earlier journey, I still wasn't sure how I'd managed to find my way back to the pub without getting lost. The street looked familiar, vaguely. Then again, there wasn't much difference from street to street through the whole village. I shook my head, I was over thinking. My distracted state earlier had probably helped me not get lost, now though it was all I could think about, and the more I thought the more convinced I got that I was going the wrong way.

Some distance from the pub I found myself facing the village green. I recognised it from my very first trip around the village, but where it lay in relation to Jesse's house I had no clue. We hadn't passed it one our earlier trip, of that much I was certain, and it confirmed my suspicions that I really didn't know where I was going.

A old wooden bench sat in the neatly trimmed verge by the side of the road, the hedgerow that bordered the green just behind it. The wooden slats were sun bleached and growing thick with lichen; they groaned in protest under my weight as I took a moment to sit and take stock of my situation, but, thankfully, they held strong. I needed to pause a moment to calm my thoughts and try to find my bearings again.

One sweeping glance down the end of the street, back the way I had come from, and I could still see the bright glow from the pub's security lights gleaming in the distance. If need be, I could retrace my steps from where I was and start over, I could only have taken one wrong turn at the most. Coming to the decision that was exactly what I should do, I stood from the bench, brushed down my trousers that were sure to be dusty with lichen, hitched the bag higher on my shoulder and, with a new calm resolve about myself, made to set off back down the street. But a sudden voice from the shadows stopped me in my tracks and made my heart pound viciously in my chest.

“It's neeeever going to work, y'know!”

I couldn't see him, but I recognised that voice. Even through the strange, sing-song tone with which he hissed at me, it sounded so unnatural in the thick country brogue that spilled from its throat, but I still knew without a doubt that it was Frank.

I shouldn't have engaged him, should have kept right on walking and not taken the bait, but I just couldn't help myself. “What is never going to work, Frank?” I asked with a sigh, mentally kicking myself the very moment that I stopped and turned to face the direction the voice had come from.

Frank stepped out from the shadows beside the bench I'd just been seated on. He must have been hiding right back inside the hedgerow for me not to have noticed him when I first sat down.

“All your little plans, all your scheming. It's not going to work, none of it is. Hasn't done so far now has it? Luck isn't on your side any more, it's the downward spiral for you. Should just accept it.”

I shook my head, “You haven't got a clue about any of this, so why don't you just keep your nose out and leave me alone.”

He laughed, a loud chuckling that sent shivers down my spine at the inhuman sound of it. In the dark, his eyes looked black anyway, their natural grey darkened by the absence of light, but something sinister in their glint and stare told me, in that moment, that they were truly black. The demon was in full control of Frank's body, but one small step away from bursting through the man's skin and showing its true form – thankfully still one step away – and it was toying with me, trying to coax a reaction that would land myself in a lot of danger. I could not let myself believe a word that it spoke.