Master of the Moors

Master of the Moors by Kealan Patrick Burke Read Free Book Online

Book: Master of the Moors by Kealan Patrick Burke Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kealan Patrick Burke
Tags: Horror, Read, +UNCHECKED
would last until Christmas, and the
house would be alive again.
    "Come back," she said
again, her chest filled with mourning. "Come back to
us."
    She raised her head.
    Upon the moors, a bird
cried. The sunlight shifted ever so slightly as the mist twisted in
on itself. There was no breeze. No sound.
    But for a single, gurgled
breath.
    Kate gasped, a chill
scurrying down her spine.
    Her father's head was
still turned toward the window, but the one visible eye had
shifted, the lids widened. He was watching her, in apparent fear,
out of the corner. She saw the angry red veins stretched across the
whites, like tiny ropes attempting to drag his gaze back where it
belonged, and as she stared, petrified despite the implications of
this startling new development, his lower lip twitched.
    She was on her feet in an
instant. "Oh God... Father? "
    Everything in her wanted
to cry out, just as she had envisioned, but for the moment, she was
not yet certain enough to summon anything but the slightest of
whimpers. He heard me , she thought, her nerves humming with excitement. He's waking!
    He stared at her from the
corner of his bloodshot eye. There was a click as he swallowed, a
slight pip! as his
dry lips parted.
    Kate moved back to him.
"It's me," she said, her voice choked with tears, "I'm here.
It-it's all right now." She had never given much credence to the
power of prayer, but what was happening now---though she scarcely
dared believe it---was nothing short of a miracle.
    The eye widened until it
seemed there was only red-veined white. A shudder passed through
her father, his breath emerging in stuttered hisses, his chest
rising and falling rapidly.
    "Daddy..."
    Then the mist reached up
and choked the sun, darkening the room and sending confused shadows
sprawling across the bed.
    Kate felt a cold
uncertainty at the stark, unbridled terror in her father's eyes.
Did he not know her? Was he seeing a phantom in her place? The
petrified look seemed to be screaming a silent plea to her: Stay away stay away stay away stay
away...
    "Don't be afraid," she
sobbed. "It's me, Father. Please don't..."
    He convulsed, once. There
came the sound of what might have been a splintered cough, quickly
followed by a tortured gurgle, as atrophied organs struggled to
reacquaint themselves with life.
    Then she did scream, as,
from her father's slightly opened mouth, something began to
run.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    "Tobacco."
    "Who's that?" Neil asked.
The customer brought with him the smell of wet clay and burning
leaves, an autumnal odor that might have been pleasant if not for
the underlying stench of death that accompanied it.
    "I do apologize if I
startled you."
    "You didn't." Neil heard
no apology at all in the unfamiliar voice. While the accent
suggested someone local, the deep, rumbling timbre was completely
alien to his ears.
    He turned his back on the
man and began to feel the notches in the wood for the appropriate
shelf. Greg Fowler, the storeowner, had carved symbols in them to
indicate what each one held. Neil only had to run his fingertips
over them to find what he was looking for. Of course, initially
he'd protested what he'd perceived as 'special treatment' but
Fowler had marked the shelves anyway and secretly, Neil was glad of
them.
    "It's up there, one shelf
to your right."
    Neil clenched his teeth in
irritation. "I know where it is." He grabbed the small pouch, turned and tossed
it onto the counter.
    "You must be Neil
Mansfield," the stranger said. "Jack Mansfield's boy."
    "Who are you?"
    "A past
acquaintance."
    "Well then, I'll be sure
to tell my father that a past
acquaintance says 'hello.'"
    The man laid his coins out
on the counter. "How is your father, anyway? I'm surprised I
haven't seen him ambling about."
    Neil collected the money,
ran his thumb over the coins to ensure he'd been given the correct
amount, then deposited them into a small tin box behind the
counter. "He's sick. Has been for a long time."
    "Sick? Really? Well, that
is

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