Bad Places

Some places, especially old houses gather atmospheres to them, call them memories if you like. You can feel them, if you choose to, the moment you enter them. Now most of us, who place our heads in the happy current of science and practicalities, who lull ourselves in the humdrum and candy floss of the day-to-day do not do this. Truth be told we choose not to. And looking a little closer you will see that this desire is edged with more than just a little hysteria. Truth be told, we don’t like to look into the shade, into the deeper resonances that surround us, for to do so means to look into our own dark places, to resonate with the buildings and their dark secrets.
         The proof of this can easily be seen in the common reaction to murder or pedophilia, rape or abuse. There is a great surge of rage and lust to destroy and eradicate, beyond any sense or reason. This is from no great urge for justice or righteous, holy wrath but from fear, fear of what lurks within us all, fear of our own darkness.
         But like it or not there’s very few places on this earth where we’ve not been and where some tragedy has not happened. There is very little soil that at one time or another has not been enriched with a little human blood, where a mother’s tears has not seeped into the carpet or a persons woe has not sunk into the walls.
Course, there’s some places that’s had way more than their fair share, so much so that after a while they seem to attract more to them like the wrong end of a magnet. Places where moods turn sour and luck runs dry, places where thoughts slowly turn inward and dreams turn dark. Bad places.
         Believe me or not, I don’t rightly care no more, I’m too old now to be bothered with the witch hunts and evil eyes, the wards and curses spat at me all through my long and weary life. All’s I know is what I know and for some reason, only God knows why, I’ve never been afraid to look, it always seemed to me to be just part of it. And another thing I know for sure is, where there’s little light things will flourish in the dark.
         Now it’s not like I have a profession, I have no fancy calling cards or advertisements on the television, no sir, seems to me that’s mostly folk preying on the gullible and the lonely but who am I to judge, sure enough there’s been plenty of those accusations leveled at me over the years. But I swear, on the holy Bible and all things good, I never once did go out of my way to get myself involved in anything.
         They always come to me.
         Well until now, until I saw that boy. I could have died on the spot, the way he looked at me, right deep into me. A fear clutched tight at my breast and I knew for sure, knew for certain he was not alone. Sure I’ve seen others who could see what I’ve seen. Some stronger, some lesser, even some driven mad but I’ve never seen anything like that look. It was like the darkness was looking out of him and it knew me. Like the darkness was part of him and he could see right into my soul.
         It was last Tuesday, I was walking into town. Mostly I’ll go down through the valley on the road that follows the river through the orchards but these days on account of it being picking season the road is full of trucks and some places it’s very narrow. So I took the other road, it runs high along the ridge and drops down into the town at the side of the valley. Well there’s a house on that road, they call it the last house.
         It’s one of those places, stood empty for near 20 years because no-one local would live in it. All kinds of bad stories about that place, suicides, murders, you name it and sure as heck I know for a fact some of them is true. And the feeling off that place, like I was saying, the atmosphere, well let me tell you, it puts a chill straight down my spine. I can feel things move in there, flow and writhe, just behind eyesight, not happy things, not wholesome things.
         Three stories high, wooden framed with timber cladding, on a good plot of land with fine views of the valley and town, it must have once been a fine property but it has not aged well. On this day as I approached I could see a station wagon parked outside, half of the gable side of the house had been whitewashed and there was tins of paint lying around, a dog was barking somewhere and the grass at the front had been mowed although it still stood long and straggly at the edges. And there, there in the centre of the grass they stood, the boy and a girl, I’m guessing his sister. She was whispering in his ear and he, he stood and stared at me, his big dark eyes drinking in my soul and for a moment it felt as though all the warmth had gone from the day. My heart lurched and great pang of pity welled up in my throat.
The girl, obviously younger than him, stopped whispering and turned to me. It was only then I realized I had stopped in my tracks and was standing staring at them my mouth open and slack.
         ‘Why, hello there!’ I said brightly, squeezing a wide warm smile onto my face. ‘sure is a fine day’. They stared at me in unison neither speaking.
         ‘Now where are my manners, do forgive me, I’m Joe, Joseph Henry Cotton at your service. I live up yonder at the top of the valley, most folk call me Pa, Pa Cotton. What’s your names?’ The girl turned and ran straight into the house without a sound but the boy continued to stare.
         ‘You should just go away’ he said, his voice low and still.
         ‘Is that so’, my face straightened and I turned my eye onto to him looking deep. Oh so much hurt, and pain, confusion, anger, plenty of hand-holds for anything that should decide too, and something had, like a grey mist of malignant rot wrapped around the poor soul’s heart, seeping into him, seeping deep, clouding his already bruised thoughts. But not too far gone yet, plenty of time to unwrap it given half a chance.
         ‘Well son, I best tell you straight,’ and here I leaned forward, calling in my mind the symbol of the ankh, symbol of life and bounty. It suddenly flared strong and bright in my minds eye and I knew I was on to something, it’ll only react like that when it feels it’s opposite, so I held his gaze and poured my mind into his, continuing, ‘ it’s not often I shirk away from darkness, no sir’. I felt the darkness in him shudder and begin to recede and sure enough the boy himself gave a little jerk, wonder and panic moving across his face like clouds crossing the sun on a windy day. My mind grew brighter and I began to feel the glory fill my soul, tears began to stream down my face, ah my beautiful gift, to see the sweet glory of angels. I held nothing back, let it all pour into his soul. He looked pale now, sweat forming on his forehead and staining his shirt under his arms and I could see him lightening, freeing up.
         Then something suddenly shifted, I could feel it well up from the ground through his feet, black, viscous and old, a cold bleakness washed through him and shot straight into my head. I staggered, my mind filled with horror, blood, pain, sorrow, fear soaked into me and my symbol was drowned, dimmed and was gone. I reeled, within seconds I would be lost, my mind drowned forever.
         ‘Fool’, I thought, ‘leaping away before you look, now you’ve gone and done it’. In that moment I knew I had not the time or strength to resist but I did know one thing. Each and every one of our souls is pure, pure as shining gold, made of God or glory or whatever it is you want to call it but it cannot be tainted, that is an impossibility. Only the thought and dreams, emotions and desires around it can be blackened, see? That’s why the ignorant call the devil the deceiver ‘cos he makes you think you’re lost but you’re not, you can’t turn gold into rust, no way, no how.
         So instead of resisting, I did the opposite, I opened up all the doors and let it flow in and I felt it all come through the boy, from the ground where the slaves working this land had been whipped to death, where some had revolted and tortured and killed their master then raped his haughty daughter while the house burnt with mother and baby inside. Where they were dragged back weeks later and hung to the jeering hatred of the townsfolk. Somewhere, vaguely I heard the young girl scream but things were building up momentum, there was more, so much more.
         This house was built on that and was cursed with it. A bloody murder, mother killing daughter and husband, cruel and stern miser of a man beating his children, driving one mad and the other to suicide, and the kidnappings, young girls years ago, when I was a young man, going missing and dying here, slowly, weeping in agony while a young man giggled. Layer upon layer of gore, agony and despair poured into me drowning my glory, my precious glory. I began to choke, felt my soul gag, lord help me I could not take much more.
         ‘No!’ a strained young child’s voice cried and it all stopped. I was on my knees, drenched in sweat, bile trickling from my open, gasping mouth, eyes wide, vision swimming. I looked up, my joints aching, my heart full of horror and despair and I looked into his eyes again and to my relief they looked more human, shocked and pained and full of concern.
         ‘Are you ok, mister?’
         ‘Joe’, I smiled weakly, ’call me Joe’.
         ‘What’s going on here?’ a man’s voice, stern and hard came from across the garden. I looked over and saw a tall gaunt figure with dark greasy hair stride across the lawn towards us, shotgun crooked in his arm and in his wake the girl, smiling like a snake.
         ‘oh nothing, I’m sorry to bother you’, I said using all my strength to rise, ‘just and old man walking into town, seems I took a funny turn’. I caught the boy’s eyes which seemed to widen and he looked at me with wonder. The man was as cold and dead as stone.
         ‘Well we don’t want no niggers dying on our front yard. So you best move on old man’. Oh yes, he’d fit in here alright, he’d fit in just fine.
         ‘Begging your pardon sir’, I said, ‘I didn’t mean no harm. Sorry for upsetting your children’. Staggering, I breathed in the fresh air blowing down form the hills, full of life and the fresh oxygen born from green trees and I felt the sickness recede. Ah yes, there’s glory all around.
         ‘I’ll be seeing you around,’ I said as I attempted to saunter on down the road. Ah yes, a purpose is a mighty thing indeed and I smiled, I smiled at the birds singing and the fresh breeze and the sunlight in the trees, glory all around and I surely would be seeing them around.

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