Apocalypse Hill (Apoc Hill Miniseries Book 1) Read online

  APOCALYPSE HILL

  ~Become a Stranger~

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ~Become a Stranger~

  By The Same Author

  APOCALYPSE HILL

  by

  Matthew Stott

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  Copyright © 2016 by Matthew Stott. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Cover by: Rebecca Frank

  Edited By: Ellen Campbell

  First published by Fenric Books

  ~Become a Stranger~

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  CHAPTER ONE

  The creatures gathered upon the Hill where once fathers had murdered their children in the name of something terrible. The fathers had cut and ripped and gouged until the entire Hill had turned red and glistened like a ruby in the moonlight.

  ‘This one will.’

  ‘Can you feel it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’

  The Hill has known many names. Of course it has. Nothing so ageless passes through the centuries with only one title. For now, the people that live within sight of it call it and the land that surrounds ‘Apoc Hill’. No one walks up the Hill itself, or spreads a blanket on its slopes to enjoy a picnic on a hazy spring day, instead they try their best to avert their gaze. None of them realise that they try to ignore the Hill, but they do.

  ‘Who has whispered to her?’

  ‘Ha! Who else?’

  ‘As she slept.’

  ‘As she sang.’

  ‘As she bathed.’

  ‘The Yellow Man?’

  ‘Yellow Man—’

  ‘Yellow Man!’

  The Hill hasn’t always been where it now stands. Once it stood in the American south, under hazy, close skies, as witches tried to use its power in their name. Once it rested in view of the great Aztec temples, and watched as hearts were torn and heads were rolled to the crowds below. Once it stood at the centre of the Earth where great forgotten beasts fought and died around it.

  But now it stands at this small, overlooked place, in the far north of England.

  Apoc Hill.

  ‘Our world: soon, soon, soon.’

  The Hill arrived unnoticed by any of the residents, but the peaks and waters of the Lake District, as the wider area is known, they felt the intrusion. Felt the unnatural growth appear on its unblemished natural beauty. Bristled at the arrival and shrank back from its wrongness. Livestock broke free and kept a safe distance, and tourists no longer felt inclined to hike through Apoc on their way to the more famous lakes and hills, no matter the extra miles added to their journey.

  ‘At last, at last; we were patient and now here she is.’

  ‘Here she is—’

  ‘Yes, yes—!’

  In the shade of Apoc Hill stands a farmhouse. It is made mostly of wood and of poor construction. Within the house live what remains of a family. Once the family was much greater in number, all too soon it may disappear altogether.

  ‘Why must she be warned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She should be pushed!’

  ‘No; there are rules and even we must play by them, or this shall all be for naught.’

  The house seemed to lean away from the shadow that fell across it from the Hill, as if afraid that one cold touch from its shade could do it ill. The house would not be mistaken in this belief, especially on a night such as this.

  ‘Since she was born, the Hill has looked over her.’

  ‘Looked over all of the family.’

  ‘It has seeped into them and made them its own.’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘The Knot Man shall come a-calling.’

  ‘The deed will be done.’

  ‘The trick will begin.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was that morning, after waking from a familiar dream of her mum’s death, that Mary realised with a cool, calm certainty that she was finally going to kill her daddy.

  Mary felt almost lightheaded as she pulled the covers aside and placed her feet onto bare floorboards, her toes wriggling. There was a tingle in her hands and feet, and a storm of excited butterflies were alive in her stomach.

  Today was a very special, wonderful day.

  Mary almost giggled, placing her hand over her mouth in case her brother should hear her in the next room. He’d hear her and want to know what was so funny. How could she say she was finally going to do it? That after all these years she was finally going to kill her daddy? Kill him, too, her own loving brother. Her brother who had helped with the cutting. Her brother who had joined in with other things, too, over the years. So many bad and wicked things. Had not acted like a protective older brother should. She didn’t want a brother like that anymore.

  Mary stood as the remnants of the night’s dream hazed and drifted. It was a dream that came to her most nights, whether she awoke remembering it or not. The dream of her mum’s death. It had happened just downstairs.

  Mary was six years old and her parents were fighting.

  ‘I saw you looking at him! I saw it, you whore!’

  ‘Please, I didn’t, I wasn’t, please, please—’

  Mary may only have been a small child, but as she watched through the crack in the door, she knew there was no amount of begging or pleases that was going to turn this situation around. Daddy was badly drunk and his eyes were bulging. Bulging like they always did when the anger took hold of him. His face was crimson, lips and chin spittle-sheened, and she could count every vein in his neck as they stood out proud, like lines stretching away from a canvas tent.

  ‘You know too well what happened last time you strayed. You know.’

  Her mum was backed against the wall, a trapped animal. Her daddy punched her in the jaw and sent Mum crashing to the floor. Mary had heard the jaw break as her daddy’s knuckles connected.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, quietly. For a moment their eyes met. Mary and her mum’s. But her mum’s eyes registered no fear, no affection, no hope; they were empty glass marbles. She knew there was nothing to be done. Knew what was coming next. As her jaw broke and the floor came
up to meet her, she’d accepted the end.

  Her mum looked away, and then her daddy’s heavy boot come down and stamped and stamped and stamped.

  She was dead within a minute or so of this. Even at such a young age, Mary had known that, but that had not satisfied her daddy. He attacked. He cut. He pierced. He bit, tore, penetrated.

  Finally he tired, slumping to the floor, covered in red and chunks and his own drool.

  ‘Damn it. Shit, damn it. Just look what you’ve made me do. Look at all this mess. Just look at all this mess. You know you made me. What choice did I have? You know the truth. The Hill knows it, too, oh yes. Don’t lie when you meet him at the gates as he’ll know the truth better than you know how to spread your legs for another man. Oh, look at what you’ve made me do.’

  Her brother had walked in then. Had walked in to see the mess of death that was his mother, with his daddy slumped beside it, covered in her.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hey there, boy. My good, strong boy.’

  ‘Are you okay, Dad?’

  ‘Me? Yes. Of course. Always. Better than okay, in fact. Your mother had the Devil in her. The Devil had taken her into sinful ways and it was left to me to tear the beast out of her. She practically begged me to do it. She could no longer tolerate the path she was on. Couldn’t turn back. The Devil had her in his red claws and was making her do all sorts of disgusting acts with men other than her husband.’

  Her brother had nodded.

  Mary watched a little longer. Watched as her daddy and brother used the good saw to take her mum apart. Nice sized pieces to put in the fire, or through the chipper. Daddy even joked. Whistled as he worked.

  ‘It feels good to do the Lord’s work, doesn’t it?’

  Her brother had agreed, said it felt very good indeed.

  Before they were finished cleaning up, Mary had uncurled and gone to her bed, ready to relive the whole thing again in her dreams for the very first time.

  That night she’d been awoken by a heavy weight lying down beside her on the bed.

  ‘You know I love you, little one. You know that, right?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy.’

  ‘Good. That’s good. I did a wonderful thing tonight. I sent your sinful mother to our Lord and saviour for his ultimate judgment and condemnation. Isn’t that a good thing for a man to do? A father? Isn’t that an honest life lived right?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy.’

  She’d felt a hot hand on her leg.

  ‘You need to forget her now. Forget that sinful, fallen woman. It’s just you, your daddy, and your brother now. Life is good and God is great. Aren’t we a lucky pair, you and I, Mary?’

  The hand moved up and down her leg, the flesh boiling beneath its rough touch.

  Twenty years had passed since then. They still lived in the same house, Mary, her brother, and her daddy, nestled in beside old Apoc Hill. But not for much longer. Not for much longer at all. Today was the day.

  Finally.

  Finally.

  Finally.

  Mary swayed back and forth, her hands clasped together and pressed to her chest, the morning summer sunlight bathing her in yellow embrace.

  Today was the day she killed her daddy.

  ‘What’s with all the noise?’ came a voice from down the hall.

  ‘I’m just singing, Daddy.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mary was in the kitchen, preparing herself some cereal. She always liked to eat cereal. Some days that’s all she’d have, just bowl after bowl, drowned in milk.

  She hadn’t gone in to see her daddy yet, even though he’d been calling. She wanted to wait until her brother went off for his shift at the garage. Then it would just be the two of them. Mary and her daddy.

  She lifted a spoonful of cold milk and bran flakes to her mouth as she looked out the window onto her home’s property, Apoc Hill looming over. Mary lived in an old farmhouse on a little pocket of land in the north of England, in the Lake District, situated within the county of Cumbria. There was a big old barn and a few other wooden buildings scattered outside. Not that the farm, as they all still referred to it as, had been used as such since her grandfather’s time. He’d been a dairy farmer. One of Mary’s early memories, from back when she could barely even walk, was of sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he showed her how he could milk a cow by hand. She remembered the feel of the udder, the sound the milk made as it hit the metal can.

  Things had been different then. Grandfather was the boss: of the farm, and the family. Kept everyone in line. But then he’d had the heart attack. Mum had found him in the milking barn, already cold and stiff. That’s when Daddy took over. He sold off the herd and anything else of value; now the farm was dead. Just an old house surrounded by skeletal buildings. Mary woke some mornings and, when still in that in-between state of waking up but not quite there yet, was sure she could hear the cows mooing outside. Like she could run to the window and look out to see her grandfather leading a line of them into the barn.

  ‘What’re you looking at, Mary?’ asked her brother.

  ‘Just thinking about the cows,’ she replied.

  ‘I always hated those cows. One kicked me this one time. Straight on the shinbone. A miracle it never broke the bone.’

  Mary turned from the window and leaned back on the counter. She took another spoonful of cereal and looked her brother over. He was as good as six foot, and strong from all the physical work. His hair was wild and his eyes were always where they shouldn’t be.

  ‘You working today?’ she asked.

  He grunted, ‘I gotta shift starting in about half an hour.’

  He moved close to her; she could smell his sweat. Didn’t matter how he tried to cover it, she could always smell it. ‘Not even time for breakfast?’ Mary lifted her spoonful of cereal and put it in her brother’s mouth. His lips closed around it and she pulled the spoon out, a little milk dribbled out and down his chin. Mary wondered what he would do now. Knew what he wanted to do. She let the moment hang damp and heavy for a few seconds more, before moving on.

  ‘Today is a very special day,’ she said.

  ‘How’s that then?’

  ‘Mum would be forty-eight years old.’

  Her brother stepped back sharply, as though pushed, and he rubbed away the milk from his chin with the back of one hand. ‘We shouldn’t... shouldn’t talk about her,’ he said, glancing upwards to the ceiling, as though their daddy would hear and smash straight through it to get to them.

  ‘I’ll talk about what I want,’ said Mary. ‘Do you ever have nightmares?’

  ‘Nightmares are just the Devil’s way of trying to get to you whilst you sleep. You should never pay attention to nightmares, Mary. You know that. Dad told you that.’

  Mary took that as a ‘yes’. She wondered what her brother had nightmares about. Did their mum come to him as he slumbered, bloody and glassy eyed, limbs twisted back against the joint? Did she accuse him? Cry out for his help? Perhaps each night he helped his daddy cut her into pieces again. Over and over. Did he dream of that? Did he dream of her, his own sister? Did he dream of what the darkness in him wanted to do to her?

  ‘Happy birthday, Mum,’ she said. Her brother looked at her as though he wanted to strike her across the face with one of his big hands. She saw him grip the tabletop, knuckles white, before turning to go.

  ‘I’ll be late.’

  ‘See you tonight,’ she replied. ‘Today is such a very special day for all of us.’

  As the door opened and then slammed on the other side of the house, Mary finished up her cereal and thought about the times she’d awoken in the middle of the night to find her brother stood over her. Stood by the side of the bed, just watching her sleep.

  Even in the pitch black, she could see the dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Knot Man stood atop Apoc Hill. He looked mostly like a man, but he was not a man at all. His skin was brown and cracked like tree bark. Had he been a tree for a time? Somet
imes he thought that to be the case, but he had lived so long that it was difficult to put all the pieces together.

  He believed that he had occasional clear days, during which the full truth of his life was revealed to him, unfurling like a near endless tapestry for him to pore over at his leisure. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking. The worms and the flies told him that if he ever truly remembered his life, and was able to keep hold of the knowledge past the rising of two moons, he would revert to his true form and be allowed to die. Sometimes the Knot Man thought that would be a very good thing.

  He had but one purpose, to deliver the warnings. That is the job he was charged with. To deliver warnings. Not to interfere directly, or try to convince. Just to deliver his words, plainly and calmly, and then to leave the stage.

  The Knot Man passed the chattering things that gathered in their unseen thousands upon the Hill. They came from the ground and they came from the trees. Some had travelled for thousands of miles, across oceans and continents; others had always been there, as much a part of the Hill as the rocks and the soil.

  ‘He must.’

  ‘Must warn her.’

  ‘He must.’

  Some of them looked like woodland creatures, stood unnaturally upon two legs. Others were no more than shadows cast by no living creature. Many more took forms that would be difficult to describe, but to look upon them could turn a sane man to weeping anguish. They all regarded the house with pained hunger and spoke with expectant glee.

  ‘Soon!’

  ‘Our time. Our time!’

  ‘But he has to warn her.’

  ‘The game must be fair, and this is the first move.’

  ‘Bah! Why must we play by rules? Rules are not for the likes of us!’

  ‘Not!’

  ‘Not!’

  ‘Not!’

  It was always like this. The Knot Man recalled the last time he delivered this specific warning, oh, so many, many years ago. The creatures knew very well that he must deliver his warning, or else their plans would be for naught, but still they looked upon him with malice as he passed by.