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fellowshippers2006-01-04 11:25 pm
pecos.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2006-01-04 11:25 pm
Entry tags:
Conclusion of the Ghost Story!
Yes, Virginia, there is an ending!
My deepest apologies for taking so long to get this to you! I had only meant to create a quick and scary story for Halloween, and ended up with the enclosed saga. But hey, sometimes you have to let the horse have it's head and run.
Additional warning: distrubing images, and animal violence.
(for my dear friend who has good reason to fear dogs, please read with great care. It'll be okay, honey, it's only fiction. If you're worried, e-mail me...)
title: How Fragile We Are - part three of three
author: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
website: http://www.chimerafic.com
beta reader: Gloria Mundi – who is a SAINT!
what is it?: RPS, speculative fiction
rating: NC-17 – angst, adult language, gay men,
violence, supernatural and horror elements
disclaimer: I don’t make the toys; I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
who’s in it?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo
Mortensen and Elijah Wood, mostly...
summary: Present day
Orlando plans a reunion for his friends
at a peculiar plantation in the Caribbean
feedback: yes, please! Even if just to say hello...
inspiration: “...perhaps this final act was meant,
to clench a lifetime’s argument, that
nothing comes from violence, and nothing
ever could. For all us born beneath an
angry star, lest we forget...” (Sting)
First part here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pecos/71435.html#cutid1
Second part here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pecos/73590.html#cutid1
How Fragile We Are
A Caribbean Haunting Tale
by Pecos
concluded:
Sean Bean was one of only four patients in the little island hospital, and the other three were apparently attributing their current misfortunes to the evils of alcohol. He got plenty of attention in the 32 hours that he was held under observation for his concussion, but he didn’t get much in the way of information. Viggo was allowed to talk to him at long last, and forty minutes later Bean had checked himself out and was standing on the craggy bluff, surveying the smoldering remains of the plantation mansion.
A few walls remained, and one section of stonework had twisted over onto its side, resembling a lazy strip of taffy. Blackened beams poked up like ribs in an eviscerated corpse, and a chimney in the kitchen area thrust skyward in a final obscene gesture of defiance. Smoke still rose from the ruins, and the prevalent, acrid stench was far worse than just burned wood could account for. The scene was one of utter carnage, although none of the men felt much sense of loss over the structure.
“He got out,” Elijah said firmly, wrapped in Dominic’s arms, and shivering despite the afternoon heat. “He got out.”
“He’ll turn up,” Dom said, his voice decidedly unconvincing, even though he was trying to reassure himself as much as the others. “He’ll just turn up, ya know?”
“Fucking Orlando,” Billy mumble; then gaining volume he growled, “I canna believe they won’t search the wreckage again.”
“They said it needs to cool off and settle,” Viggo reminded the group. “We should comb the surrounding area again. Maybe he’s here somewhere, injured. Could have crawled off with a broken leg, or…something….”
Viggo turned and examined the bluff, plotting a new search pattern. They’d spent the entire day before scouring the grounds while the island’s sole trained rescue crew poked through as much of the wreckage as they dared approach. Realistically, a human body could go unrecovered for a very long time in all that destruction.
“I’m glad that the news hasn’t leaked out yet,” Dominic said, kissing the top of Elijah’s head.
“Either that or they’re all on their way here now,” Billy speculated. “I canna even imagine the fuss that’ll be made.”
Sean drew a deep breath, smelling the stink of smoke and something much, much darker. He had been through five kinds of anger already on the drive out there, directed at the other members of the Fellowship for keeping him in the dark about how Orlando was missing, and at himself for having been unable to recall anything of the fire. But he remembered the creature that had appeared behind him – the thing that had tossed him aside like a doll. He had no doubt at all who – or at least what – had started the conflagration. He could still see those burning eyes….
“Fuck this,” Sean blurted as he ducked under the hazard tape the local police had strung around the ruins and strode boldly towards the burned-out building.
“Sean? Sean?” Elijah blurted, pulling free from his boyfriend and trying to follow. Dom tried to hold him back, but failed, and the entire group eventually fell in behind Bean.
“Orli, lad?” Sean called softly. It was strange and ominous, hearing him calling to the young man amongst the blackened walls and debris. “Orli?”
“Orlando!” Viggo hollered, moving off down the charred stone façade.
“Be careful, everyone!” Billy pleaded, before poking his head into the rubble. Elijah and Dominic headed around a collapsed wall, pausing to look under timbers and into dark gaps. None of them wanted to actually find him, at least not within the confines of the destruction. But no one could refrain from trying to do something – anything….
Sean stared at the skeletal remains of the central staircase for a long time, trying to put his finger on an illusive memory. His head ached horribly, even through the drugs, and he felt a bright spark of anger stirring in his chest that had nothing to do with the current situation. He turned away and headed around to the back of the mansion, toward that standing chimney. Picking his way carefully over the exposed floor beams, Sean stepped around the incinerated remains of the modern kitchen’s contents and reached out to touch the smooth stone of the ancient chimney. The rock was hot to the touch, though likely from the sun rather than the fire of almost two days ago.
“Make sure that the floor is still sound,” Viggo said loudly. He’d followed Sean this far, and was hunting through the rubble at the periphery. Viggo paused in his search, face suddenly creasing with concentration. “Sean…do you smell that?”
“What?” Sean asked, moving over fallen timbers to a relatively clear space near the steps in the cellar. This part of the building had survived pretty much intact, just the floor above missing.
“Something odd, something…flowers?”
Sean didn’t hear the mumbled words. He was already stepping cautiously down the kitchen steps, into the dark below.
A wave of intense dizziness assailed Sean at the landing halfway down the steps, probably due to his recent head injury. He clutched at the rough wall and kept going, eyes all but closed against the sudden pain and disorientation. When his feet found the floor of the cellar he took a deep breath and looked around. There was something strange going on, but it took him a moment to figure out exactly what was wrong. Then the strong aroma of a marketplace won through and he gaped at the changes since his previous exploration of this space.
Baskets of onions lined one wall, and a wooden bin held a large pile of apples. Bushels of lemons and potatoes seemed to glow in the gloom. Bundles of herbs and strings of garlic hung from the rafters and shelves were overwhelmed with a wealth of food in jars and rude tins. The meat locker door was firmly closed, but a huge leg of tapas ham hung nearby, carved concave on one side, shining softly in the dim light.
Sean slowly reached back to reconnect with the stone wall, feeling the cool surface firm and reassuring under his fingertips. He took a step to the nearest shelf and touched a jar filled with livid red tomatoes. It was all real; it was all here.
His head seemed to clear as he stood there, and Sean suddenly decided that he needed some sort of confirmation at the difference in the cellar’s contents. “Viggo?” he called, turning back to the stairs. “Viggo?” No answer came down, and he abruptly remembered the desolation above ground, and worried that perhaps Viggo had run afoul of some bit of smoldering wreckage. Sean stomped back up the steps, but no bright glare of sunlight greeted him as he rose. Instead he emerged into the mansion’s kitchen…but this was a completely different kitchen to what he'd seen before.
Two huge stoves stood on a slate floor, firewood and baskets of coal stored nearby. The coals glowed listlessly in the open fireplace, and heavy kettles and pots hung from iron hooks set in the lintel. A nearby table held a variety of bowls and utensils, and behind this stood a large black woman, kneading dough and humming to herself.
“Fucking hell,” Sean muttered, trying to reconcile this wealth of bizarre images. The woman didn’t seem to have heard him speak, so he advanced a step and cleared his throat, before speaking clearly. “Pardon me, Ma’am?”
She didn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way.
“Hello?” Sean said loudly, leaning closer. “Bon jour?”
She paused for a moment, and crossed herself, glancing out the window, then returned to her task, reaching for more flour to stiffen the dough, starting to sing what sounded like a religious song. This worried Sean and he turned quickly toward the door leading to the rest of the house. The door was still there all right, but now there was a brick path instead of a hallway; the mansion was a separate building, and significantly smaller than Sean remembered.
He stood in the doorway and looked out on a different world. Trees grew closer to the house, and luxuriant gardens surrounded the many buildings. A team of glossy chestnut Hackney ponies were pulling a buggy up the road from town, and a bunch of children were running and screaming in play in a field near the smoking sugar mill. The air smelled fecund and fresh and…alive.
“No,” Sean said firmly, shaking his head. “No, this isn’t happening. It has to be the concussion. Has to be.” He turned back to see that the woman behind him had been joined by a young boy who was shoving a few bits of coal into one of the ovens. The two were chatting in soft French, the local dialect lilting and bright. “Where am I?” Sean demanded loudly.
Neither of them acknowledged him in any way, and he suddenly realized the horrifying truth. “Aww, Jesus…I’m a ghost! I’m the fucking ghost here!"
With a blind rush of panic, Sean darted toward the cellar staircase, knocking a bowl full of eggs off the table in his haste. The cook and her assistant both jumped at the sound, and turned to stare incredulously at the mess. Sean kept moving, all but running down the stairs. He took the turn at a run and almost fell down the last few steps. He hit the dirt floor at the bottom and gasped. This time the profusion of food was vastly diminished. The apple bin was empty, and the bushel baskets gone. Some of the jars still remained, and a few rusty tins, but the ham was missing and a lot of junk cluttered the floor. There was a very human stench in the air, one of waste and decay.
“God, no,” he moaned, clutching the wall at his side.
That was when he heard the heavy breathing and the rustle of chains scraping in the dirt, and he realized that he wasn’t alone in the cellar.
Viggo stepped carefully over burned timbers and roofing slates and leaned close to the stairs leading downward for the ruined kitchen. “Sean?” he called. “Sean, what’s that noise? Just look around and come up, okay? Sean? Beano?”
The sound that he had been referring to faded away and there was nothing but the noises of settling wreckage and the sigh of the wind through the mansion’s remains.
“Orlando?” Billy called loudly from somewhere near the front of the building.
“Orli?” Elijah yelled, from farther away.
“Sean, you’re starting to worry me,” Viggo said loudly.
He was afraid to look, but even more afraid not to. Sean slowly slid one foot after the other across the uneven floor, hoping that he was wrong about the animalistic noises he was hearing from an alcove near the meat locker. As he got nearer, he could see a figure huddled on the ground near a heavy beam that supported the floor above. One more step and he realized that it was a crouching human, and not the horrible monstrosity that Sean remembered from the moment before he had been smashed into the sink in his bathroom. A bare back, smudged heavily with dirt and soot, hunched in what could only be abject misery. Sean was ready to bolt when he spotted the thin ridge of scar tissue. He gasped, “Orlando?”
The figure jerked, and nearly collapsed as the young man scrambled in the dirt to turn around. It was then that Sean saw the heavy manacles, and the chains that bound him to the base of the timber. Sean fell to his knees and gathered up the astonished lad he’d been seeking. “Orlando! Baby! Oh, lad…what’s happened?”
“Seanie?” Orli whispered hoarsely, struggling for a moment, and then clutching the bigger man like their lives depended on the contact. “Sean?” His face was almost unrecognizable, eyes sunk in deep hollows and cheeks caved in. His beard had grown in patchily and the tumble of curls now hung limply down his back. He clung tightly to Sean’s arms, and his broken fingernails scratched Sean’s skin.
Sean was squatting down, legs spread to hold Orlando firmly against his chest, and over the young man’s shoulders he could see the rest of the alcove, and realized that Orlando had been there for so long that he’d made a nest of sorts in the dirt. Broken jars and battered tins suggested that he’d somehow gotten some food from the nearby shelves. Sean rocked back enough to look down at the chain that connected the manacles to the beam. Orlando had been scrapping and tearing at the wood, trying to wear it away, but he’d hardly done more than make notches on the corners of the beam. It was some impossibly strong tropical hardwood, and probably a quarter meter wide on each side.
“How long have you been down here, lad?” Sean asked, still holding him tight in response to the desperation in Orlando’s grip.
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks? A month?” His voice cracked and he seemed to be trying to swallow. “Water? Sean…can you get me water?”
“Of course,” Sean told him, prying the bruising fingers loose. “I’ll get you some water.” He got shakily to his feet, and looked down on the pathetic figure that had once been such a gloriously alive and attractive young man. Orlando was clearly close to death, and the sunken eyes that peered up at him desperately seemed to hold that knowledge. “There has to be some water upstairs.”
“No!” Orlando croaked, clawing at his pants leg. “No! Don’t leave me again! Not again!”
“I just get you some water, then we’ll figure out how to get those cuffs off,” Sean promised, backing away. He was revolted and horrified, as much by his own reaction as by seeing Orlando in this state. He wanted to stay; he wanted to flee.
“Don’t leave me….” Orlando panted, collapsing on the dirt floor, one hand reaching as far as it could despite the heavy chains.
Sean turned and ran up the stairs. He would get water first, and maybe some food for the starving prisoner. Then he would figure out how to get Orli free and they would return to their own place and…time? Was this some sort of time trap? The question occurred to him just as he reached the top of the stairs…and stepped out into a modern kitchen. It was set up much like it had been when they’d arrived at the mansion, but none of their group’s foodstuffs and supplies were in evidence. Sean suspected that if he searched the house he would find it empty. He had no urge to do so, because if he did run into another person and they failed to see or hear him again he would know beyond a doubt that he’d gone mad…and he wasn’t ready to test that idea just yet.
He slammed a few cabinet doors open before deciding on a steel teakettle. Thankfully, the water was working, and he rapidly filled the kettle at the tap, glancing out the same window that the cook had looked through only minutes before. Now the house was huge again, and modern. And yet, there was something wrong. Sean bit his lip as he thought that the sun was at the wrong angle in the sky. A different season maybe, and definitely much later in the day than it should be. This was fucked up in a whole lot of ways.
He hurried back to the staircase, calling out, “I’m coming back down, Orlando.”
Sean realized his mistake at the same time he reached the landing. He could already tell that he shouldn’t have left. All he could smell was smoke. He paused on the steps, heart pounding. What would happen if he had lost Orlando? The connection had been so fleeting, and so tenuous. The poor kid had obviously been through a horrible ordeal already. And now…where was he? What had happened?
He stepped cautiously down the few remaining steps, and it was a good thing too because there was someone else in the cellar – the Smoke Ghost. A large, dark man dressed only in ragged pants and the tattered remains of a bloodstained but once white linen shirt stood in a clear space. Chains hung from bloody wrists and the massive head was bowed. Sean was already backing up the steps when the Smoke Ghost raised his face. The eyes were burning with hatred and the mouth was set in a rictus-like grimace. That mouth fell open and smoke poured out, like vile words on innocent ears.
Panicked, Sean threw the full kettle, and it passed harmlessly through the apparition’s body and crashed into the wall behind. Then the ghost moved, gliding over the ground, making no apparent effort and yet coming rapidly toward him. That was all the impetuous Sean needed to encourage him to bolt for the stairs. He’d never ascended anything so fast in his life.
He burst into a kitchen filled with people, all dressed in clothes from the turn of the previous century or longer ago. They were working and chatting and laughing, and not one looked up at his abrupt arrival or made note of his frantic, gasping breath. Sean barreled through the room, afraid that the ghost was still behind him, and at a loss for where to hide, he ran up the next flight of stairs to the floor above. When he hit the top of those steps he found a room furnished with cots and chests, simple furniture that was probably used by the cooks or the kitchen lads below. This was likely where some of the servants lived.
“Aww, Jesus,” he mumbled, staggering a bit, clutching at his pounding head and listening to his racing heart. He was trying to see if he’d been pursued.
“You should not speak the Lord’s name blasphemously,” said a small voice.
Sean whirled to see a little girl in a cotton-print dress sitting on one of the cots, playing with a toy of some sort. She was looking right at him. "You can see me?" he questioned softly.
The little girl giggled and squirmed coquettishly. “You’re wearing strange clothing! Are you from a ship?”
“Uh, no. I’m from the town.” He moved closer, slowly, like one would with an animal that you’re not sure of, and dropped to one knee, lowering himself to her level. “My name is Sean. What’s your name?”
She made a face, like she didn’t really approve of his name, and wiggled on the cot. “My name is Antoinette. My Papa owns this plantation.”
Now that he was closer, Sean could see what toy she had in her tiny hands. It was a dead bird. The bird’s head lolled from side to side as she moved it, the beady eyes dry and lifeless, its beak partially open as if it were trying to voice some complaint. It was some kind of tern, or other shore bird. Sean shuddered, and looked quickly back to the stairs he’d come up, straining to hear if he’d been followed. He didn’t know if the Smoke Ghost would be a threat to the little girl.
“Gunnar doesn’t come up here,” Antoinette informed him blandly. She flopped the bird onto its back. There were little ribbons tied around its legs, above the still, clenched claws.
“Gunnar?”
“Papa said Gunnar done a bad thing. But he didn’t do it. Gunnar didn’t kill me.”
“Jesus,” Sean mumbled. He was talking to the Flower Ghost.
Shifting a bit of rubble, Billy peered beneath a blackened sheet of metal, hoping to miraculously find some evidence of Orlando's escape. It was a silly idea, he knew, but all of them felt that they had to do something – anything – to look for their missing friend. A shiny object caught his eye, and he got a grip on the metal and lifted it a bit higher. “Uh, lads…boys?” Billy called over his shoulder. “Dom, ‘Lijah?” They were at his side in moments, faces tight with worry over what Billy might have uncovered.
He pulled harder on the heavy metal, and Dom quickly jumped in to help. They lifted it up to reveal a small, unburned area of what had been a corner of a ground floor room. It wasn’t the fact that this bit of the building had escaped the flames, but rather the small pile of objects collected there that made all three of them gape in amazement. The presents that Orlando had given them were neatly piled in a patch of scorched, but otherwise undamaged carpeting.
Elijah’s game discs, Dom’s leathers, Billy’s book, Viggo’s singing fish and Sean’s cavalry pistol had all miraculously evaded the conflagration that had utterly destroyed the house all around them. Even Viggo’s favorite journal was tucked safely inside.
“How is this possible?” Billy asked.
“I had those bracers in my suitcase,” Dom said suspiciously.
“The discs should have melted,” Elijah said, reaching in to touch one. There was a thin dusting of fine ash on everything, but otherwise they seemed unharmed.
Dom looked around quickly, saying, “Maybe someone put them here after the fire…maybe Orlando did it….”
“The fire?” Elijah questioned, “Why would Orli have started the fire? He’s the one who rented this place.”
Billy was looking at the amount of debris atop the sheet of metal, which was now sliding aside in a cloud of ash. “I think this came down from somewhere above, in the blaze. So how would it ‘ave just landed so nicely over these things and protected them? Doesn’t make sense, eh?”
“Not a bit,” Dom agreed. “Which is just about right.”
“I fell on the steps,” Antoinette was telling Sean, demonstrating with her plaything, the dead bird. She rolled it over and snapped the limp head back. There was a faint cracking noise, and bile rose in the actor’s throat. “Cook told me not to run,” the little girl sighed. “She told me time and again. I just forgot.”
“You fell on the clear stairs?” Sean asked, trying to clarify.
She nodded. “Gunnar found me. He was my friend. He was a good slave. He never been in trouble before.” She frowned, wrenching the bird’s limp body back and forth. “He took my body to Papa. Papa screamed and said bad words. He hit Gunnar. Gunnar tried to run away, and Papa set the dogs on him. He chained Gunnar up for a long time, and then the judge said that Gunnar should die. I didn’t want that to happen, but nobody listened to me and no one would talk to me anymore! They hung Gunnar by the neck, and then they burnt him up!”
She twisted the dead bird’s head off in a single deft move, and threw it across the room. Sean drew back, frightened, but then he forced himself to steady his voice and ask softly, “How long have you been here, darling?”
“All the years. All the years.” Her voice took on a singsong tone, and she started to chant it. “All the years! All the years!” The bird’s body was made to dance a little jig.
Sean reached out a hand, intending to touch her shoulder. He really just wanted to make her stop, but he also meant to reassure the lost, and possibly deranged little girl. His hand slid through her thin shoulder like it was an illusion projected onto smoke, and she faded from view, still singing…
“All the years…all the years…all the years….”
He couldn’t help turning to look for the bird’s head, wondering if it would confirm or deny the reality of what he’d just heard, but the grotesquery was gone as well. “Fuck me…this is an insane asylum,” he muttered, walking to the window, rubbing at the back of his neck. Why could the Flower Ghost see him, but no one else? If he hadn’t been able to touch her, did that mean that the Smoke Ghost couldn’t touch him? He was far too afraid to put that theory to the test.
Sean’s eyes scanned the active plantation grounds below, stunned to find it full of people working and living and getting on with their day. A motion to one side caught Sean’s eye, and hope sprung suddenly in his chest.
He moved cautiously down the ground floor stairs and out the kitchen door into an active yard. No one seemed to notice him, and he could feel the heat of the sun on his face, yet he still felt like he was moving through an illusion. It was like he’d stepped inside some Merchant Ivory picture, and all that was needed was for the Hero and Heroine to arrive in spotless attire and solve his dilemma.
He had reached the grounds where several men were busy splitting and stacking a cord of wood, probably intending it for the boilers in the sugar mill. The axe was a heavy one, and its handle felt all too real and reassuring in his grip. He waited until no one was nearby to wrench it free of the scarred stump and turned to head back to the kitchens. That was when he heard the growling, and then a warning bark. Sean rolled his eyes without moving his head. One of the Hell Hounds was at the corner of a nearby shed, and it was looking right at him. The Irish wolfhound raised its lip in a snarl, eyes narrowing, and then the other two were there as well. All three dogs started barking and growling.
“Nice doggies,” Sean mumbled. What the hell was that supposed to achieve, he questioned himself. Obviously they weren’t nice dogs, or they wouldn’t be growling at him like that. He started backing toward the kitchen door, sliding his feet over the packed earth. The wolfhounds started to advance, stalking him. “Aw, fuck…I can’t get a break,” Sean mumbled, still moving backwards.
A man stalked past in a hurry, and Sean’s eyes involuntarily followed his form. He looked oddly familiar. It took a moment to realize how much the man looked like Orlando, of all people. Sean’s mouth fell open at the same time he realized that the dogs were looking after the man as well, one of them whining plaintively. The reprieve in their attack was temporary, though, and the three animals quickly resumed their previous stalking.
Three more steps, feeling his way more than anything else, afraid to turn his back on the wolfhounds, Sean hefted the heavy axe, intending to use it if he had to. His foot snagged against a rock and he swayed for a moment, trying to correct -- and then he realized that the passing man hadn’t said anything to the dogs. He hadn’t scolded them or encouraged their play...if that was what it was…in fact he hadn’t seemed to see them at all. Sean drew a deep breath, adrenalin coursing through his body, and then the dogs attacked, coming at him so fast and with such noise and fury that he barely had time to turn and run.
That was the same instant that he saw what had been standing not two meters behind him – the Smoke Ghost! Looking mostly human, dressed in smoldering rags, the huge man lunged at Sean at the exact moment that he saw it coming and tried to dodge, swinging the axe. The blade connected with something – not solid flesh – but something substantial nonetheless, and then the dogs were on them. But the animals didn’t attack Sean; they had been stalking Gunnar. The Ghost and the dogs went over in a heap of flailing limbs and yelping, biting animals. Sean managed to avoid the collision and ran as hard as he could back to the kitchen door. The sounds of barking and growling and howls of pain made it seem like a war had broken out. He suspected this was a war that had been fought over and over through the years.
Sean didn’t take any note of his surroundings at all, he just ran through and straight down the stairs to the cellar. Pulling up before he reached the bottom, he was praying that he wouldn’t find Orlando dead.
The basement area was quiet and dusty, much as it had been once before, and Sean advanced slowly as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he saw the young man sprawled in the dirt, a pair of pajama pants hiked over a smooth hip, the heavy chain laid out like a fat snake. The chest rose with a gentle breath, and Sean felt a rush of joy as he realized that Orlando was merely asleep.
“Orli,” Sean said softly, afraid to break whatever spell had brought them together at the right time. He dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around the young man who was coming awake slowly.
“Seanie?” Orlando asked, always a tough one to wake up, and not very alert for a while when he did so under any circumstances. “What do you want, Sean? It’s so early, isn’t it?”
He was so overcome with relief that Sean burst out laughing. He was still wiping the tears from his eyes when Orlando realized his predicament, discovering the manacles and chain.
A burned beam shifted suddenly, crashing down with a thunderous noise just behind the chimney, and Viggo ducked defensively. A choking cloud of ash swirled around the Dane, painting his clothes and hair with a fine white patina. He covered his face, coughing.
“Viggo!” Elijah shouted from elsewhere. “Viggo, you okay?”
“We’re coming over!” Dom yelled. “You won’t believe what we just found!”
Viggo spat out a mouthful of dust and black gunk. “Sean!” he shouted at the cellar steps. “Get out of there now! I mean it! Don’t make me come down there and get you!”
“Be careful!” Billy called, climbing over wreckage on his way to the kitchen area. “It’s all none too stable."
Viggo edged closer to the empty steps, eyeing them cautiously. The cellar’s opening looked like a grave cut into the body of the dead building. He heard something move down there in the dark.
Sean rocked him gently, like he would one of his children when they’d wake up from a bad dream. And that seemed to be what Orlando thought it was…a dream. He only dimly remembered being dragged out of bed by the Smoke Ghost. He’d told of being hauled up the hallway like a big bag full of dirty laundry, of how his efforts to escape had been so laughably ineffectual. He snuffled and rubbed at his face, trying to focus on surroundings that just made no sense to him. Sean could sympathize, having just come around from his own concussion so recently.
“But why are you here?” Orlando asked again. He’d said it several times already.
“I came to get you, ya daft southern softy.” He rubbed the smooth, muscular upper arms, relieved not to find them emaciated with starvation. “Came to get my Elf Prince…my friend.”
“Your friend,” Orlando whispered, trembling for a moment. “Yeah…your friend.” He turned his head enough to kiss Sean’s lips, startling the older man considerably. “You came to get me.”
Sean returned the kiss, surprising himself even more. There was going to be more to this, he realized. Much, much more. Everything had abruptly changed in the Fellowship’s dynamic. And then Sean forced himself away from the groggy young man and started examining the manacles, seeing how they had seemingly been forged in place, the chain links hooked straight through the catch on the cuffs. Orli’s skin was already tearing from the rough edges. Sean knew how bad that would look in a few weeks time…he’d already seen. He set Orlando to work digging at the base of the beam the chain was secured around, chipping at the packed earth with whatever came to hand. Orlando dug industriously, trying to keep his focus on the task. Sean kept an eye on the stairs too, alert for any possible arrivals.
It took them hours to uncover the base of the beam where it was snugged against bedrock. It was just like Sean had figured, the weight of the floor above pressing down heavily. He moved Orlando as far from the beam as he could, and then took a first mighty swing with the axe.
“You have to turn it around, Sean,” Orlando said over the ringing thud of metal against wood. “The sharp bit, you know?” Sean smiled at him, and Orli added, “Didn’t you ever notice how Gimli wielded his axe?”
“I’m not trying to cut the timber, Orli. This thing would be dull and useless long before we got halfway through. This timber is about as tough as stone. I’m going to knock it down.”
Orlando pursed his lips as Sean swung again and again. He looked up at where the beam was joisted to the floor above, the brackets made of thick iron. “It’s not going to work,” he said, frowning. “There’s too much weight. Maybe, if we had something to pry those nails out? Sean?” He had to time his word to fit in between the axe’s blows. “Sean, could you got upstairs and find a crowbar, or something?”
Sean paused, and he almost moved to comply. And just like that he realized something – that was where he’d gone wrong the last time.
Last time? Before? He’d left Orlando once before, because when he’d run to get the water Orli had cried ‘Don’t leave me again! Not again!’ But that had been long after this, because Orli had been so near to death, and he’d been trapped down here for so long… Sean’s head ached with a pain that had nothing to do with his concussion. Fucking time travel. Fuck it…he'd work it all out later.
“Not leaving you,” Sean grumbled, and he put his back into swinging the axe, using the back of the head to hit the beam as close to the base as he could.
“Well, okay…if you’re sure,” Orlando said, confused. He got to his feet and grabbed the chain, moving so he could apply his body weight in the direction Sean was trying to drive the beam. There was a tiny bit of movement on the next massive swing. They both took heart and applied themselves even more. The bracket groaned now, and there was a thin, unpleasant squeak coming from the top of the beam and well and a slight grind at the base. The wood moved fractionally across the bared rock.
And then it moved a bit faster; they could actually see it shifting. The floor above creaked loudly. The beam slid a bit more. Sean’s axe had knocked a dent in the inward side, and it gave more traction to his blows. “This could go suddenly,” Sean warned. "Jerk the chain free and run for those stairs, just in case the floor comes down. Don’t stop to see what happens or wait for me, Orlando. You just run for it.”
“Such a hero type,” Orli teased him, yanking harder on the chain. His wrists were already bleeding, but that was hardly a worry now.
Three more mighty blows and then the post seemed to stick. The crossbeams above were groaning, the brace pulling free of its pins.
“Hold on a moment,” Sean said, catching his breath and looking around. “If only there was some oil or something…something slippery.”
“Upstairs?” Orlando said, and then he realized that there was something about that offer that Sean refused to consider. “Wait…maybe….” He dropped the chains to fumble with his pajama bottoms, pulling them down to free his flaccid cock.
“Uh, I didn’t mean that kind of oil,” Sean stammered. “Besides, this is hardly….”
“Nice offer, Sean. Quite the romantics, you northerners,” Orlando snorted. “You mind turning away? I’ve got a sorta shy bladder.”
Blushing despite himself, Sean stepped away, then he heard the stream striking the wood of the stuck beam. Of course…the earth was clay. Clay got very slick when it was wet. Sean quickly dug his own penis out and his stream of urine joined Orli’s. They grinned at each other. “If this doesn’t work I’m going to be really embarrassed later,” Orli said.
“I doubt it,” Sean mumbled, hefting the axe again. He took a couple of lighter taps to realize that the beam was freed from its obstruction and moving again. “Get ready!”
It happened very quickly. Sean took a mighty swing, putting every last bit of his flagging strength into the motion, and the end of the beam skidded across the rock surface. Orlando was hauling back so hard that when the chain slipped off over the bottom of the post he went tumbling backwards. Sean was already moving, scooping Orlando up as the floor above them shifted ominously, dirt and dust sifting down into their hair. Sean ran for the stairs, dragging Orlando. Wood broke somewhere with a mighty crack, and then their feet were on the risers.
Viggo heard the scrambling sounds and he reached out as Sean came up the steps into the sunshine. The others had just arrived in time to see Sean emerging. Viggo took his arm, trying to hurry him. Sean’s expression was unreadable, but his face was pale and coated in dust and sweat. Elijah, Billy and Dom were all talking at once when Viggo realized that Sean’s arm was extended behind him, and he was pulling Orlando up the stairs with him. Viggo pulled Sean up and reached for Orlando, but suddenly the young man was jerked backward, as if he had slipped and was falling back down the stairs.
Sean’s face was set, and he dug his heels in, refusing to let Orlando pull away. There was a horrible moment when it seemed like time froze, Orlando pulling Sean one way, Viggo pulling the other, and then suddenly three more sets of hands were extended. Sean got his footing and came further into the light. Orlando was curiously passive, his palms open and his face showing such total disbelief that it was almost tempting to stop and query him about his story right there and then. Sean had a death-grip on Orlando’s wrist, which was how Viggo noticed the shackles, and then Elijah finally saw the arm wrapped around Orlando’s waist, and his scream shocked them all into action.
The Smoke Ghost had wrapped his arms around Orlando’s body and was doing everything it could to drag the young man back down the steps.
Normally anyone who saw something like that being pulled out into the light would have dropped everything and run for their lives. But not these men. Not the Fellowship. They had been tested by other trials, and they’d survived other challenges. This one was life or death, and they all knew it instinctively. If Orlando got pulled back into the darkness he would never emerge again. Every last one of them dug in and pulled. Sean heaved mightily and Dom, Billy, Viggo and Elijah all got a grip on their friend, and Orlando was pulled up into the light of day.
There was a scream of ungodly agony, and then the Smoke Ghost dissolved into nothing more than wisps of its namesake. The persistent Caribbean breeze blew it away.
Viggo sat on the dry grass, scribbling in the notebook. He was trying to draw the Smoke Ghost as it had appeared moments before dissolving. They were waiting for the authorities to arrive. Apparently everyone official was on the other side of the island for lunch.
“No, no…the brow is all wrong. More bone, like a ridge,” Dom was instructing, leaning over, his shadow eclipsing the page.
“Not more,” Billy countered. “He looks like bloody Neanderthal now! There was compassion in those eyes.” He was sprawled on his belly, shirt hiked up to reveal a freckled back.
“Like hell there was!” Elijah snapped, pulling away. “Compassion? More like bloody murder!” He gestured a throat-slitting motion with his hands.
Sean was seated with his back against Viggo’s, utterly uninterested in the artistic endeavors. His head hurt, his muscles ached, and he smelled of sweat and fear and dust and piss. He’d spent hours, if not days of terror – while these lads had only just seen him leave a short while ago. He reached down to stroke Orlando’s face, marveling at the quiet strength there. Orlando was looking up at him with a mysterious smile, thinking exactly the same thing. It was a strength that neither of them had known was there before.
“The shackles are going to be hard to explain,” Orli said casually, shifting his chains.
“Police’ll have someone to get them off,” Viggo said dryly. “I’m sure it happens all the time.”
Billy just stared up at him in shock. Dom burst out laughing. “God, Viggo, I really want to visit your planet some time!”
“This has been some fucking vacation, Orlando,” Elijah announced.
“I’m impressed, I am,” Billy added.
“I need a vacation from your vacation,” Sean muttered. He let his thumb linger over Orlando’s pulse.
The dark eyes drifted shut in pleasure. “I’ll see what I can do for Saint Valentine’s Day.”
My deepest apologies for taking so long to get this to you! I had only meant to create a quick and scary story for Halloween, and ended up with the enclosed saga. But hey, sometimes you have to let the horse have it's head and run.
Additional warning: distrubing images, and animal violence.
(for my dear friend who has good reason to fear dogs, please read with great care. It'll be okay, honey, it's only fiction. If you're worried, e-mail me...)
title: How Fragile We Are - part three of three
author: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
website: http://www.chimerafic.com
beta reader: Gloria Mundi – who is a SAINT!
what is it?: RPS, speculative fiction
rating: NC-17 – angst, adult language, gay men,
violence, supernatural and horror elements
disclaimer: I don’t make the toys; I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
who’s in it?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo
Mortensen and Elijah Wood, mostly...
summary: Present day
Orlando plans a reunion for his friends
at a peculiar plantation in the Caribbean
feedback: yes, please! Even if just to say hello...
inspiration: “...perhaps this final act was meant,
to clench a lifetime’s argument, that
nothing comes from violence, and nothing
ever could. For all us born beneath an
angry star, lest we forget...” (Sting)
First part here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pecos/71435.html#cutid1
Second part here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pecos/73590.html#cutid1
How Fragile We Are
A Caribbean Haunting Tale
by Pecos
concluded:
Sean Bean was one of only four patients in the little island hospital, and the other three were apparently attributing their current misfortunes to the evils of alcohol. He got plenty of attention in the 32 hours that he was held under observation for his concussion, but he didn’t get much in the way of information. Viggo was allowed to talk to him at long last, and forty minutes later Bean had checked himself out and was standing on the craggy bluff, surveying the smoldering remains of the plantation mansion.
A few walls remained, and one section of stonework had twisted over onto its side, resembling a lazy strip of taffy. Blackened beams poked up like ribs in an eviscerated corpse, and a chimney in the kitchen area thrust skyward in a final obscene gesture of defiance. Smoke still rose from the ruins, and the prevalent, acrid stench was far worse than just burned wood could account for. The scene was one of utter carnage, although none of the men felt much sense of loss over the structure.
“He got out,” Elijah said firmly, wrapped in Dominic’s arms, and shivering despite the afternoon heat. “He got out.”
“He’ll turn up,” Dom said, his voice decidedly unconvincing, even though he was trying to reassure himself as much as the others. “He’ll just turn up, ya know?”
“Fucking Orlando,” Billy mumble; then gaining volume he growled, “I canna believe they won’t search the wreckage again.”
“They said it needs to cool off and settle,” Viggo reminded the group. “We should comb the surrounding area again. Maybe he’s here somewhere, injured. Could have crawled off with a broken leg, or…something….”
Viggo turned and examined the bluff, plotting a new search pattern. They’d spent the entire day before scouring the grounds while the island’s sole trained rescue crew poked through as much of the wreckage as they dared approach. Realistically, a human body could go unrecovered for a very long time in all that destruction.
“I’m glad that the news hasn’t leaked out yet,” Dominic said, kissing the top of Elijah’s head.
“Either that or they’re all on their way here now,” Billy speculated. “I canna even imagine the fuss that’ll be made.”
Sean drew a deep breath, smelling the stink of smoke and something much, much darker. He had been through five kinds of anger already on the drive out there, directed at the other members of the Fellowship for keeping him in the dark about how Orlando was missing, and at himself for having been unable to recall anything of the fire. But he remembered the creature that had appeared behind him – the thing that had tossed him aside like a doll. He had no doubt at all who – or at least what – had started the conflagration. He could still see those burning eyes….
“Fuck this,” Sean blurted as he ducked under the hazard tape the local police had strung around the ruins and strode boldly towards the burned-out building.
“Sean? Sean?” Elijah blurted, pulling free from his boyfriend and trying to follow. Dom tried to hold him back, but failed, and the entire group eventually fell in behind Bean.
“Orli, lad?” Sean called softly. It was strange and ominous, hearing him calling to the young man amongst the blackened walls and debris. “Orli?”
“Orlando!” Viggo hollered, moving off down the charred stone façade.
“Be careful, everyone!” Billy pleaded, before poking his head into the rubble. Elijah and Dominic headed around a collapsed wall, pausing to look under timbers and into dark gaps. None of them wanted to actually find him, at least not within the confines of the destruction. But no one could refrain from trying to do something – anything….
Sean stared at the skeletal remains of the central staircase for a long time, trying to put his finger on an illusive memory. His head ached horribly, even through the drugs, and he felt a bright spark of anger stirring in his chest that had nothing to do with the current situation. He turned away and headed around to the back of the mansion, toward that standing chimney. Picking his way carefully over the exposed floor beams, Sean stepped around the incinerated remains of the modern kitchen’s contents and reached out to touch the smooth stone of the ancient chimney. The rock was hot to the touch, though likely from the sun rather than the fire of almost two days ago.
“Make sure that the floor is still sound,” Viggo said loudly. He’d followed Sean this far, and was hunting through the rubble at the periphery. Viggo paused in his search, face suddenly creasing with concentration. “Sean…do you smell that?”
“What?” Sean asked, moving over fallen timbers to a relatively clear space near the steps in the cellar. This part of the building had survived pretty much intact, just the floor above missing.
“Something odd, something…flowers?”
Sean didn’t hear the mumbled words. He was already stepping cautiously down the kitchen steps, into the dark below.
A wave of intense dizziness assailed Sean at the landing halfway down the steps, probably due to his recent head injury. He clutched at the rough wall and kept going, eyes all but closed against the sudden pain and disorientation. When his feet found the floor of the cellar he took a deep breath and looked around. There was something strange going on, but it took him a moment to figure out exactly what was wrong. Then the strong aroma of a marketplace won through and he gaped at the changes since his previous exploration of this space.
Baskets of onions lined one wall, and a wooden bin held a large pile of apples. Bushels of lemons and potatoes seemed to glow in the gloom. Bundles of herbs and strings of garlic hung from the rafters and shelves were overwhelmed with a wealth of food in jars and rude tins. The meat locker door was firmly closed, but a huge leg of tapas ham hung nearby, carved concave on one side, shining softly in the dim light.
Sean slowly reached back to reconnect with the stone wall, feeling the cool surface firm and reassuring under his fingertips. He took a step to the nearest shelf and touched a jar filled with livid red tomatoes. It was all real; it was all here.
His head seemed to clear as he stood there, and Sean suddenly decided that he needed some sort of confirmation at the difference in the cellar’s contents. “Viggo?” he called, turning back to the stairs. “Viggo?” No answer came down, and he abruptly remembered the desolation above ground, and worried that perhaps Viggo had run afoul of some bit of smoldering wreckage. Sean stomped back up the steps, but no bright glare of sunlight greeted him as he rose. Instead he emerged into the mansion’s kitchen…but this was a completely different kitchen to what he'd seen before.
Two huge stoves stood on a slate floor, firewood and baskets of coal stored nearby. The coals glowed listlessly in the open fireplace, and heavy kettles and pots hung from iron hooks set in the lintel. A nearby table held a variety of bowls and utensils, and behind this stood a large black woman, kneading dough and humming to herself.
“Fucking hell,” Sean muttered, trying to reconcile this wealth of bizarre images. The woman didn’t seem to have heard him speak, so he advanced a step and cleared his throat, before speaking clearly. “Pardon me, Ma’am?”
She didn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way.
“Hello?” Sean said loudly, leaning closer. “Bon jour?”
She paused for a moment, and crossed herself, glancing out the window, then returned to her task, reaching for more flour to stiffen the dough, starting to sing what sounded like a religious song. This worried Sean and he turned quickly toward the door leading to the rest of the house. The door was still there all right, but now there was a brick path instead of a hallway; the mansion was a separate building, and significantly smaller than Sean remembered.
He stood in the doorway and looked out on a different world. Trees grew closer to the house, and luxuriant gardens surrounded the many buildings. A team of glossy chestnut Hackney ponies were pulling a buggy up the road from town, and a bunch of children were running and screaming in play in a field near the smoking sugar mill. The air smelled fecund and fresh and…alive.
“No,” Sean said firmly, shaking his head. “No, this isn’t happening. It has to be the concussion. Has to be.” He turned back to see that the woman behind him had been joined by a young boy who was shoving a few bits of coal into one of the ovens. The two were chatting in soft French, the local dialect lilting and bright. “Where am I?” Sean demanded loudly.
Neither of them acknowledged him in any way, and he suddenly realized the horrifying truth. “Aww, Jesus…I’m a ghost! I’m the fucking ghost here!"
With a blind rush of panic, Sean darted toward the cellar staircase, knocking a bowl full of eggs off the table in his haste. The cook and her assistant both jumped at the sound, and turned to stare incredulously at the mess. Sean kept moving, all but running down the stairs. He took the turn at a run and almost fell down the last few steps. He hit the dirt floor at the bottom and gasped. This time the profusion of food was vastly diminished. The apple bin was empty, and the bushel baskets gone. Some of the jars still remained, and a few rusty tins, but the ham was missing and a lot of junk cluttered the floor. There was a very human stench in the air, one of waste and decay.
“God, no,” he moaned, clutching the wall at his side.
That was when he heard the heavy breathing and the rustle of chains scraping in the dirt, and he realized that he wasn’t alone in the cellar.
Viggo stepped carefully over burned timbers and roofing slates and leaned close to the stairs leading downward for the ruined kitchen. “Sean?” he called. “Sean, what’s that noise? Just look around and come up, okay? Sean? Beano?”
The sound that he had been referring to faded away and there was nothing but the noises of settling wreckage and the sigh of the wind through the mansion’s remains.
“Orlando?” Billy called loudly from somewhere near the front of the building.
“Orli?” Elijah yelled, from farther away.
“Sean, you’re starting to worry me,” Viggo said loudly.
He was afraid to look, but even more afraid not to. Sean slowly slid one foot after the other across the uneven floor, hoping that he was wrong about the animalistic noises he was hearing from an alcove near the meat locker. As he got nearer, he could see a figure huddled on the ground near a heavy beam that supported the floor above. One more step and he realized that it was a crouching human, and not the horrible monstrosity that Sean remembered from the moment before he had been smashed into the sink in his bathroom. A bare back, smudged heavily with dirt and soot, hunched in what could only be abject misery. Sean was ready to bolt when he spotted the thin ridge of scar tissue. He gasped, “Orlando?”
The figure jerked, and nearly collapsed as the young man scrambled in the dirt to turn around. It was then that Sean saw the heavy manacles, and the chains that bound him to the base of the timber. Sean fell to his knees and gathered up the astonished lad he’d been seeking. “Orlando! Baby! Oh, lad…what’s happened?”
“Seanie?” Orli whispered hoarsely, struggling for a moment, and then clutching the bigger man like their lives depended on the contact. “Sean?” His face was almost unrecognizable, eyes sunk in deep hollows and cheeks caved in. His beard had grown in patchily and the tumble of curls now hung limply down his back. He clung tightly to Sean’s arms, and his broken fingernails scratched Sean’s skin.
Sean was squatting down, legs spread to hold Orlando firmly against his chest, and over the young man’s shoulders he could see the rest of the alcove, and realized that Orlando had been there for so long that he’d made a nest of sorts in the dirt. Broken jars and battered tins suggested that he’d somehow gotten some food from the nearby shelves. Sean rocked back enough to look down at the chain that connected the manacles to the beam. Orlando had been scrapping and tearing at the wood, trying to wear it away, but he’d hardly done more than make notches on the corners of the beam. It was some impossibly strong tropical hardwood, and probably a quarter meter wide on each side.
“How long have you been down here, lad?” Sean asked, still holding him tight in response to the desperation in Orlando’s grip.
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks? A month?” His voice cracked and he seemed to be trying to swallow. “Water? Sean…can you get me water?”
“Of course,” Sean told him, prying the bruising fingers loose. “I’ll get you some water.” He got shakily to his feet, and looked down on the pathetic figure that had once been such a gloriously alive and attractive young man. Orlando was clearly close to death, and the sunken eyes that peered up at him desperately seemed to hold that knowledge. “There has to be some water upstairs.”
“No!” Orlando croaked, clawing at his pants leg. “No! Don’t leave me again! Not again!”
“I just get you some water, then we’ll figure out how to get those cuffs off,” Sean promised, backing away. He was revolted and horrified, as much by his own reaction as by seeing Orlando in this state. He wanted to stay; he wanted to flee.
“Don’t leave me….” Orlando panted, collapsing on the dirt floor, one hand reaching as far as it could despite the heavy chains.
Sean turned and ran up the stairs. He would get water first, and maybe some food for the starving prisoner. Then he would figure out how to get Orli free and they would return to their own place and…time? Was this some sort of time trap? The question occurred to him just as he reached the top of the stairs…and stepped out into a modern kitchen. It was set up much like it had been when they’d arrived at the mansion, but none of their group’s foodstuffs and supplies were in evidence. Sean suspected that if he searched the house he would find it empty. He had no urge to do so, because if he did run into another person and they failed to see or hear him again he would know beyond a doubt that he’d gone mad…and he wasn’t ready to test that idea just yet.
He slammed a few cabinet doors open before deciding on a steel teakettle. Thankfully, the water was working, and he rapidly filled the kettle at the tap, glancing out the same window that the cook had looked through only minutes before. Now the house was huge again, and modern. And yet, there was something wrong. Sean bit his lip as he thought that the sun was at the wrong angle in the sky. A different season maybe, and definitely much later in the day than it should be. This was fucked up in a whole lot of ways.
He hurried back to the staircase, calling out, “I’m coming back down, Orlando.”
Sean realized his mistake at the same time he reached the landing. He could already tell that he shouldn’t have left. All he could smell was smoke. He paused on the steps, heart pounding. What would happen if he had lost Orlando? The connection had been so fleeting, and so tenuous. The poor kid had obviously been through a horrible ordeal already. And now…where was he? What had happened?
He stepped cautiously down the few remaining steps, and it was a good thing too because there was someone else in the cellar – the Smoke Ghost. A large, dark man dressed only in ragged pants and the tattered remains of a bloodstained but once white linen shirt stood in a clear space. Chains hung from bloody wrists and the massive head was bowed. Sean was already backing up the steps when the Smoke Ghost raised his face. The eyes were burning with hatred and the mouth was set in a rictus-like grimace. That mouth fell open and smoke poured out, like vile words on innocent ears.
Panicked, Sean threw the full kettle, and it passed harmlessly through the apparition’s body and crashed into the wall behind. Then the ghost moved, gliding over the ground, making no apparent effort and yet coming rapidly toward him. That was all the impetuous Sean needed to encourage him to bolt for the stairs. He’d never ascended anything so fast in his life.
He burst into a kitchen filled with people, all dressed in clothes from the turn of the previous century or longer ago. They were working and chatting and laughing, and not one looked up at his abrupt arrival or made note of his frantic, gasping breath. Sean barreled through the room, afraid that the ghost was still behind him, and at a loss for where to hide, he ran up the next flight of stairs to the floor above. When he hit the top of those steps he found a room furnished with cots and chests, simple furniture that was probably used by the cooks or the kitchen lads below. This was likely where some of the servants lived.
“Aww, Jesus,” he mumbled, staggering a bit, clutching at his pounding head and listening to his racing heart. He was trying to see if he’d been pursued.
“You should not speak the Lord’s name blasphemously,” said a small voice.
Sean whirled to see a little girl in a cotton-print dress sitting on one of the cots, playing with a toy of some sort. She was looking right at him. "You can see me?" he questioned softly.
The little girl giggled and squirmed coquettishly. “You’re wearing strange clothing! Are you from a ship?”
“Uh, no. I’m from the town.” He moved closer, slowly, like one would with an animal that you’re not sure of, and dropped to one knee, lowering himself to her level. “My name is Sean. What’s your name?”
She made a face, like she didn’t really approve of his name, and wiggled on the cot. “My name is Antoinette. My Papa owns this plantation.”
Now that he was closer, Sean could see what toy she had in her tiny hands. It was a dead bird. The bird’s head lolled from side to side as she moved it, the beady eyes dry and lifeless, its beak partially open as if it were trying to voice some complaint. It was some kind of tern, or other shore bird. Sean shuddered, and looked quickly back to the stairs he’d come up, straining to hear if he’d been followed. He didn’t know if the Smoke Ghost would be a threat to the little girl.
“Gunnar doesn’t come up here,” Antoinette informed him blandly. She flopped the bird onto its back. There were little ribbons tied around its legs, above the still, clenched claws.
“Gunnar?”
“Papa said Gunnar done a bad thing. But he didn’t do it. Gunnar didn’t kill me.”
“Jesus,” Sean mumbled. He was talking to the Flower Ghost.
Shifting a bit of rubble, Billy peered beneath a blackened sheet of metal, hoping to miraculously find some evidence of Orlando's escape. It was a silly idea, he knew, but all of them felt that they had to do something – anything – to look for their missing friend. A shiny object caught his eye, and he got a grip on the metal and lifted it a bit higher. “Uh, lads…boys?” Billy called over his shoulder. “Dom, ‘Lijah?” They were at his side in moments, faces tight with worry over what Billy might have uncovered.
He pulled harder on the heavy metal, and Dom quickly jumped in to help. They lifted it up to reveal a small, unburned area of what had been a corner of a ground floor room. It wasn’t the fact that this bit of the building had escaped the flames, but rather the small pile of objects collected there that made all three of them gape in amazement. The presents that Orlando had given them were neatly piled in a patch of scorched, but otherwise undamaged carpeting.
Elijah’s game discs, Dom’s leathers, Billy’s book, Viggo’s singing fish and Sean’s cavalry pistol had all miraculously evaded the conflagration that had utterly destroyed the house all around them. Even Viggo’s favorite journal was tucked safely inside.
“How is this possible?” Billy asked.
“I had those bracers in my suitcase,” Dom said suspiciously.
“The discs should have melted,” Elijah said, reaching in to touch one. There was a thin dusting of fine ash on everything, but otherwise they seemed unharmed.
Dom looked around quickly, saying, “Maybe someone put them here after the fire…maybe Orlando did it….”
“The fire?” Elijah questioned, “Why would Orli have started the fire? He’s the one who rented this place.”
Billy was looking at the amount of debris atop the sheet of metal, which was now sliding aside in a cloud of ash. “I think this came down from somewhere above, in the blaze. So how would it ‘ave just landed so nicely over these things and protected them? Doesn’t make sense, eh?”
“Not a bit,” Dom agreed. “Which is just about right.”
“I fell on the steps,” Antoinette was telling Sean, demonstrating with her plaything, the dead bird. She rolled it over and snapped the limp head back. There was a faint cracking noise, and bile rose in the actor’s throat. “Cook told me not to run,” the little girl sighed. “She told me time and again. I just forgot.”
“You fell on the clear stairs?” Sean asked, trying to clarify.
She nodded. “Gunnar found me. He was my friend. He was a good slave. He never been in trouble before.” She frowned, wrenching the bird’s limp body back and forth. “He took my body to Papa. Papa screamed and said bad words. He hit Gunnar. Gunnar tried to run away, and Papa set the dogs on him. He chained Gunnar up for a long time, and then the judge said that Gunnar should die. I didn’t want that to happen, but nobody listened to me and no one would talk to me anymore! They hung Gunnar by the neck, and then they burnt him up!”
She twisted the dead bird’s head off in a single deft move, and threw it across the room. Sean drew back, frightened, but then he forced himself to steady his voice and ask softly, “How long have you been here, darling?”
“All the years. All the years.” Her voice took on a singsong tone, and she started to chant it. “All the years! All the years!” The bird’s body was made to dance a little jig.
Sean reached out a hand, intending to touch her shoulder. He really just wanted to make her stop, but he also meant to reassure the lost, and possibly deranged little girl. His hand slid through her thin shoulder like it was an illusion projected onto smoke, and she faded from view, still singing…
“All the years…all the years…all the years….”
He couldn’t help turning to look for the bird’s head, wondering if it would confirm or deny the reality of what he’d just heard, but the grotesquery was gone as well. “Fuck me…this is an insane asylum,” he muttered, walking to the window, rubbing at the back of his neck. Why could the Flower Ghost see him, but no one else? If he hadn’t been able to touch her, did that mean that the Smoke Ghost couldn’t touch him? He was far too afraid to put that theory to the test.
Sean’s eyes scanned the active plantation grounds below, stunned to find it full of people working and living and getting on with their day. A motion to one side caught Sean’s eye, and hope sprung suddenly in his chest.
He moved cautiously down the ground floor stairs and out the kitchen door into an active yard. No one seemed to notice him, and he could feel the heat of the sun on his face, yet he still felt like he was moving through an illusion. It was like he’d stepped inside some Merchant Ivory picture, and all that was needed was for the Hero and Heroine to arrive in spotless attire and solve his dilemma.
He had reached the grounds where several men were busy splitting and stacking a cord of wood, probably intending it for the boilers in the sugar mill. The axe was a heavy one, and its handle felt all too real and reassuring in his grip. He waited until no one was nearby to wrench it free of the scarred stump and turned to head back to the kitchens. That was when he heard the growling, and then a warning bark. Sean rolled his eyes without moving his head. One of the Hell Hounds was at the corner of a nearby shed, and it was looking right at him. The Irish wolfhound raised its lip in a snarl, eyes narrowing, and then the other two were there as well. All three dogs started barking and growling.
“Nice doggies,” Sean mumbled. What the hell was that supposed to achieve, he questioned himself. Obviously they weren’t nice dogs, or they wouldn’t be growling at him like that. He started backing toward the kitchen door, sliding his feet over the packed earth. The wolfhounds started to advance, stalking him. “Aw, fuck…I can’t get a break,” Sean mumbled, still moving backwards.
A man stalked past in a hurry, and Sean’s eyes involuntarily followed his form. He looked oddly familiar. It took a moment to realize how much the man looked like Orlando, of all people. Sean’s mouth fell open at the same time he realized that the dogs were looking after the man as well, one of them whining plaintively. The reprieve in their attack was temporary, though, and the three animals quickly resumed their previous stalking.
Three more steps, feeling his way more than anything else, afraid to turn his back on the wolfhounds, Sean hefted the heavy axe, intending to use it if he had to. His foot snagged against a rock and he swayed for a moment, trying to correct -- and then he realized that the passing man hadn’t said anything to the dogs. He hadn’t scolded them or encouraged their play...if that was what it was…in fact he hadn’t seemed to see them at all. Sean drew a deep breath, adrenalin coursing through his body, and then the dogs attacked, coming at him so fast and with such noise and fury that he barely had time to turn and run.
That was the same instant that he saw what had been standing not two meters behind him – the Smoke Ghost! Looking mostly human, dressed in smoldering rags, the huge man lunged at Sean at the exact moment that he saw it coming and tried to dodge, swinging the axe. The blade connected with something – not solid flesh – but something substantial nonetheless, and then the dogs were on them. But the animals didn’t attack Sean; they had been stalking Gunnar. The Ghost and the dogs went over in a heap of flailing limbs and yelping, biting animals. Sean managed to avoid the collision and ran as hard as he could back to the kitchen door. The sounds of barking and growling and howls of pain made it seem like a war had broken out. He suspected this was a war that had been fought over and over through the years.
Sean didn’t take any note of his surroundings at all, he just ran through and straight down the stairs to the cellar. Pulling up before he reached the bottom, he was praying that he wouldn’t find Orlando dead.
The basement area was quiet and dusty, much as it had been once before, and Sean advanced slowly as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he saw the young man sprawled in the dirt, a pair of pajama pants hiked over a smooth hip, the heavy chain laid out like a fat snake. The chest rose with a gentle breath, and Sean felt a rush of joy as he realized that Orlando was merely asleep.
“Orli,” Sean said softly, afraid to break whatever spell had brought them together at the right time. He dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around the young man who was coming awake slowly.
“Seanie?” Orlando asked, always a tough one to wake up, and not very alert for a while when he did so under any circumstances. “What do you want, Sean? It’s so early, isn’t it?”
He was so overcome with relief that Sean burst out laughing. He was still wiping the tears from his eyes when Orlando realized his predicament, discovering the manacles and chain.
A burned beam shifted suddenly, crashing down with a thunderous noise just behind the chimney, and Viggo ducked defensively. A choking cloud of ash swirled around the Dane, painting his clothes and hair with a fine white patina. He covered his face, coughing.
“Viggo!” Elijah shouted from elsewhere. “Viggo, you okay?”
“We’re coming over!” Dom yelled. “You won’t believe what we just found!”
Viggo spat out a mouthful of dust and black gunk. “Sean!” he shouted at the cellar steps. “Get out of there now! I mean it! Don’t make me come down there and get you!”
“Be careful!” Billy called, climbing over wreckage on his way to the kitchen area. “It’s all none too stable."
Viggo edged closer to the empty steps, eyeing them cautiously. The cellar’s opening looked like a grave cut into the body of the dead building. He heard something move down there in the dark.
Sean rocked him gently, like he would one of his children when they’d wake up from a bad dream. And that seemed to be what Orlando thought it was…a dream. He only dimly remembered being dragged out of bed by the Smoke Ghost. He’d told of being hauled up the hallway like a big bag full of dirty laundry, of how his efforts to escape had been so laughably ineffectual. He snuffled and rubbed at his face, trying to focus on surroundings that just made no sense to him. Sean could sympathize, having just come around from his own concussion so recently.
“But why are you here?” Orlando asked again. He’d said it several times already.
“I came to get you, ya daft southern softy.” He rubbed the smooth, muscular upper arms, relieved not to find them emaciated with starvation. “Came to get my Elf Prince…my friend.”
“Your friend,” Orlando whispered, trembling for a moment. “Yeah…your friend.” He turned his head enough to kiss Sean’s lips, startling the older man considerably. “You came to get me.”
Sean returned the kiss, surprising himself even more. There was going to be more to this, he realized. Much, much more. Everything had abruptly changed in the Fellowship’s dynamic. And then Sean forced himself away from the groggy young man and started examining the manacles, seeing how they had seemingly been forged in place, the chain links hooked straight through the catch on the cuffs. Orli’s skin was already tearing from the rough edges. Sean knew how bad that would look in a few weeks time…he’d already seen. He set Orlando to work digging at the base of the beam the chain was secured around, chipping at the packed earth with whatever came to hand. Orlando dug industriously, trying to keep his focus on the task. Sean kept an eye on the stairs too, alert for any possible arrivals.
It took them hours to uncover the base of the beam where it was snugged against bedrock. It was just like Sean had figured, the weight of the floor above pressing down heavily. He moved Orlando as far from the beam as he could, and then took a first mighty swing with the axe.
“You have to turn it around, Sean,” Orlando said over the ringing thud of metal against wood. “The sharp bit, you know?” Sean smiled at him, and Orli added, “Didn’t you ever notice how Gimli wielded his axe?”
“I’m not trying to cut the timber, Orli. This thing would be dull and useless long before we got halfway through. This timber is about as tough as stone. I’m going to knock it down.”
Orlando pursed his lips as Sean swung again and again. He looked up at where the beam was joisted to the floor above, the brackets made of thick iron. “It’s not going to work,” he said, frowning. “There’s too much weight. Maybe, if we had something to pry those nails out? Sean?” He had to time his word to fit in between the axe’s blows. “Sean, could you got upstairs and find a crowbar, or something?”
Sean paused, and he almost moved to comply. And just like that he realized something – that was where he’d gone wrong the last time.
Last time? Before? He’d left Orlando once before, because when he’d run to get the water Orli had cried ‘Don’t leave me again! Not again!’ But that had been long after this, because Orli had been so near to death, and he’d been trapped down here for so long… Sean’s head ached with a pain that had nothing to do with his concussion. Fucking time travel. Fuck it…he'd work it all out later.
“Not leaving you,” Sean grumbled, and he put his back into swinging the axe, using the back of the head to hit the beam as close to the base as he could.
“Well, okay…if you’re sure,” Orlando said, confused. He got to his feet and grabbed the chain, moving so he could apply his body weight in the direction Sean was trying to drive the beam. There was a tiny bit of movement on the next massive swing. They both took heart and applied themselves even more. The bracket groaned now, and there was a thin, unpleasant squeak coming from the top of the beam and well and a slight grind at the base. The wood moved fractionally across the bared rock.
And then it moved a bit faster; they could actually see it shifting. The floor above creaked loudly. The beam slid a bit more. Sean’s axe had knocked a dent in the inward side, and it gave more traction to his blows. “This could go suddenly,” Sean warned. "Jerk the chain free and run for those stairs, just in case the floor comes down. Don’t stop to see what happens or wait for me, Orlando. You just run for it.”
“Such a hero type,” Orli teased him, yanking harder on the chain. His wrists were already bleeding, but that was hardly a worry now.
Three more mighty blows and then the post seemed to stick. The crossbeams above were groaning, the brace pulling free of its pins.
“Hold on a moment,” Sean said, catching his breath and looking around. “If only there was some oil or something…something slippery.”
“Upstairs?” Orlando said, and then he realized that there was something about that offer that Sean refused to consider. “Wait…maybe….” He dropped the chains to fumble with his pajama bottoms, pulling them down to free his flaccid cock.
“Uh, I didn’t mean that kind of oil,” Sean stammered. “Besides, this is hardly….”
“Nice offer, Sean. Quite the romantics, you northerners,” Orlando snorted. “You mind turning away? I’ve got a sorta shy bladder.”
Blushing despite himself, Sean stepped away, then he heard the stream striking the wood of the stuck beam. Of course…the earth was clay. Clay got very slick when it was wet. Sean quickly dug his own penis out and his stream of urine joined Orli’s. They grinned at each other. “If this doesn’t work I’m going to be really embarrassed later,” Orli said.
“I doubt it,” Sean mumbled, hefting the axe again. He took a couple of lighter taps to realize that the beam was freed from its obstruction and moving again. “Get ready!”
It happened very quickly. Sean took a mighty swing, putting every last bit of his flagging strength into the motion, and the end of the beam skidded across the rock surface. Orlando was hauling back so hard that when the chain slipped off over the bottom of the post he went tumbling backwards. Sean was already moving, scooping Orlando up as the floor above them shifted ominously, dirt and dust sifting down into their hair. Sean ran for the stairs, dragging Orlando. Wood broke somewhere with a mighty crack, and then their feet were on the risers.
Viggo heard the scrambling sounds and he reached out as Sean came up the steps into the sunshine. The others had just arrived in time to see Sean emerging. Viggo took his arm, trying to hurry him. Sean’s expression was unreadable, but his face was pale and coated in dust and sweat. Elijah, Billy and Dom were all talking at once when Viggo realized that Sean’s arm was extended behind him, and he was pulling Orlando up the stairs with him. Viggo pulled Sean up and reached for Orlando, but suddenly the young man was jerked backward, as if he had slipped and was falling back down the stairs.
Sean’s face was set, and he dug his heels in, refusing to let Orlando pull away. There was a horrible moment when it seemed like time froze, Orlando pulling Sean one way, Viggo pulling the other, and then suddenly three more sets of hands were extended. Sean got his footing and came further into the light. Orlando was curiously passive, his palms open and his face showing such total disbelief that it was almost tempting to stop and query him about his story right there and then. Sean had a death-grip on Orlando’s wrist, which was how Viggo noticed the shackles, and then Elijah finally saw the arm wrapped around Orlando’s waist, and his scream shocked them all into action.
The Smoke Ghost had wrapped his arms around Orlando’s body and was doing everything it could to drag the young man back down the steps.
Normally anyone who saw something like that being pulled out into the light would have dropped everything and run for their lives. But not these men. Not the Fellowship. They had been tested by other trials, and they’d survived other challenges. This one was life or death, and they all knew it instinctively. If Orlando got pulled back into the darkness he would never emerge again. Every last one of them dug in and pulled. Sean heaved mightily and Dom, Billy, Viggo and Elijah all got a grip on their friend, and Orlando was pulled up into the light of day.
There was a scream of ungodly agony, and then the Smoke Ghost dissolved into nothing more than wisps of its namesake. The persistent Caribbean breeze blew it away.
Viggo sat on the dry grass, scribbling in the notebook. He was trying to draw the Smoke Ghost as it had appeared moments before dissolving. They were waiting for the authorities to arrive. Apparently everyone official was on the other side of the island for lunch.
“No, no…the brow is all wrong. More bone, like a ridge,” Dom was instructing, leaning over, his shadow eclipsing the page.
“Not more,” Billy countered. “He looks like bloody Neanderthal now! There was compassion in those eyes.” He was sprawled on his belly, shirt hiked up to reveal a freckled back.
“Like hell there was!” Elijah snapped, pulling away. “Compassion? More like bloody murder!” He gestured a throat-slitting motion with his hands.
Sean was seated with his back against Viggo’s, utterly uninterested in the artistic endeavors. His head hurt, his muscles ached, and he smelled of sweat and fear and dust and piss. He’d spent hours, if not days of terror – while these lads had only just seen him leave a short while ago. He reached down to stroke Orlando’s face, marveling at the quiet strength there. Orlando was looking up at him with a mysterious smile, thinking exactly the same thing. It was a strength that neither of them had known was there before.
“The shackles are going to be hard to explain,” Orli said casually, shifting his chains.
“Police’ll have someone to get them off,” Viggo said dryly. “I’m sure it happens all the time.”
Billy just stared up at him in shock. Dom burst out laughing. “God, Viggo, I really want to visit your planet some time!”
“This has been some fucking vacation, Orlando,” Elijah announced.
“I’m impressed, I am,” Billy added.
“I need a vacation from your vacation,” Sean muttered. He let his thumb linger over Orlando’s pulse.
The dark eyes drifted shut in pleasure. “I’ll see what I can do for Saint Valentine’s Day.”
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And I'd love to know what happens on Valentine's... But thank you, for such a wonderful read!
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Thanks for letting me know!