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The fallow field continued to emit a low hum at ground level in the fading light of the late afternoon. The vibrations were strongest around the freshly dug mound of earth the woman had been pulled from, the breach still ebbing its strange energy. The wind picked up around the farm, stirring the high corn in the adjacent fields, folding it and forcing it back and forth in a hypnotic swaying motion. Calham and Matt emerged from the furthest barn and made their way over to the farmhouse, Matt walking in a daze as the farmer held his chain.
Once inside the kitchen, Matt sat down at the table without waiting for invitation or instruction, unaware of what happened to him the last time he was there. Calham tethered the chain around his waist to one of the heavy table’s struts and padlocked it. Duke the dog eyed Matt suspiciously from his basket, his head low, his expression surly.
Matt looked around the cluttered walls and shelves of the kitchen, but only the vaguest feelings of familiarity washed over him. He watched Calham fill the kettle and boil it on the stove, preparing two mugs of tea. Matt rubbed his forehead and pinched the corners of his eyes against the bridge of his nose, trying to disperse a dull ache swelling where dozens of questions were trapped behind the nullifying sensation of shock. He slumped back in his chair and watched Calham put one of the mugs down in front of him. The farmer took the seat opposite him.
“Get that down you,” said Calham. “You’ll feel better.”
“What was that thing?” said Matt.
Calham hesitated.
“Henry,” he said.
“But, what was it?” said Matt. “And the woman?”
“Calham sipped at his tea and pondered the question, before sighing an answer.
“The field always brings them back,” he said. “But sometimes...sometimes they turn. Spoil. I don’t know why exactly. The length of time you leave them in the ground has a Something to do with it. Leave them in too long and it’s bad. And where you plant them matters too. Some parts of the field work better than others. Some parts don’t do nothing at all. Anyway, if it goes wrong...then...then they come out like poor Henry. All twisted.”
“It’s a monster,” said Matt. “Why don’t you get rid of it?”
Calham shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the dog curled up in the corner.
“Same reason I keep old Duke,” he said.
Matt took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Everything was muddled, confused. He didn’t know what was real anymore. There were gaping holes in his mind and the farmer’s tall tales weren’t helping him fill them. There had been a murder, the woman had died, but now she was back. The farmer said it wasn’t a trick, it was the field; but the farmer couldn’t be trusted; that much he did know.
“A bad dream,” he said, screwing his eyes shut. “It’s just a bad dream.”
Calham smiled to himself and stood up. He slid his chair back under the table and headed out of the kitchen with his mug still in his hand. He lingered in the doorway to the hall and looked back at Matt.
Matt opened his eyes again to find the figment of his waking nightmare still in front of him and still all too real. He sighed with open disappointment.
“So what happens now?”
“Now?” said Calham. “We wait.”
Calham winked at him and disappeared behind a door in the gloomy hall beyond the kitchen.
* * *
The sun set on Shadowbrook Farm, casting long shadows across the surrounding fields that spread and joined to usher in the waiting darkness . A cold, meager light flickered from one of the ground floor windows of the farmhouse. Inside, canned laughter blurted out through the open lounge door and along the hallway to the kitchen, as the ghostly blue reflections of an unseen television set played over the hall wall. Matt woke with a start and looked around the kitchen in bewilderment, roused from his sleep by the noise. He wiped dribble from his mouth and yawned. Then he frowned as he noticed something shiny sat on the crammed shelves against the kitchen wall. He began to stare at it intently, even as specific memories of it evaded his conscious mind. The sound of television’s canned laughter swelled as the lounge door opened all the way. Calham shuffled out into the hall, just as Matt dropped his head to his arms on the table top and pretended to be asleep. Calham entered the kitchen and peered at Matt for a moment. He then turned away and took a bottle of cheap whiskey and a glass from one of the cupboards. He then paused and stared at Matt again, for longer this time. He moved closer to the table and hovered there over his captive. He then slammed the glass down hard on its surface near to his face. Matt didn’t flinch, though he pretended to stir in his sleep. Apparently satisfied by this, Calham picked up the whiskey glass and trudged back into the hall with it. His bulky silhouette paused there again and looked back at Matt one last time, before finally disappearing into the lounge, leaving the door ajar.
Matt carefully raised his head and checked to see if the coast was clear behind him. He then slowly rose as straight as his chains would allow, and stretched forwards to examine the shelf on the adjacent wall again. A child’s mobile of carved, metal farmyard animals, tangled in wires, sat scrunched up on the shelf next to a collection of unevenly arranged books and tins. Matt leaned further over the table to get a better look at this object that teased his forgotten memories, but his chain pulled taught against the table. Matt cursed silently and stared anxiously at the lounge door in the hallway, ready for it to whip open at any minute. His chest rose and fell rapidly, as he watched the door with anxious eyes.
Nothing.
Matt gently lowered himself back on to his seat. He rested his chin on to his folded arms to genuinely try for sleep again, though he didn’t take his eyes off the tangled toy on the shelf.
* * *
A steaming cup of coffee thumped down on to the kitchen table next to Matt’s face. His eyes snapped open and he raised his groggy features. Calham moved to the window and stooped to look out over the cornfields as he smoked a cigarette.
“Morning,” he said. “These early starts taking it out of you?”
“No,” said Matt. “Just the murders and magic.”
Calham grinned, enjoying the banter. He pulled one last drag from his cigarette and blew smoke into the air before stubbing it out.
“I think you’re going to change your opinion of me today,” he said.
“It can’t get any lower.”
“We’ll see,” said the farmer.