The Smog (The Sentinels Series Book 3) Read online

  The Smog

  Written by David Longhorn

  Edited by Emma Salam and Lance Piao

  Copyright © 2016 by ScareStreet.com

  All rights reserved.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue: London, February 6th, 1952.

  Chapter 1: Preparations

  Chapter 2: Forebodings

  Chapter 3: Visions

  Chapter 4: Private Conversations

  Chapter 5: Omens

  Chapter 6: A Kind of Madness

  Chapter 7: Appearances

  Chapter 8: The Beginning of the End

  Chapter 9: The Best-Laid Plans

  Chapter 10: Preparations

  Chapter 11: London Calling

  Chapter 12: The Star Wormwood

  Epilogue: London, December 1952

  Bonus Scene: Detected

  Prologue: London, February 6th, 1952.

  “Is it true?” asks Rachel, looking from Tony to Charlotte.

  “I'm afraid so,” replies Tony. “He passed away during the night, apparently.”

  “King George is dead. Long live the Queen,” adds Charlotte. “I hope she lives a long life, to say the least. We could do with some stability at the top.”

  “True,” says Tony, “we've lived through a world war, political turmoil, and economic decline. Maybe this is a sign that we've reached the turning point.”

  Rachel has felt like an honorary Brit for years now, despite a couple of brief visits to her native New York. But this evening she's surprised by the somber mood. Even though she's sitting at the kitchen table in her new home in central London's Hobb's Lane district, she's seldom felt more American. She feels a little guilty that she can't share the feelings of her husband and her best friend about the king's death. George the Sixth always seemed a remote figure to Rachel, a quiet man who never seemed to relish in his public role.

  Still, the nation has lost a valuable figurehead, she thinks. Someone they could rally around in peacetime the way they did in the war. The old order giving way to the new. Where did I hear that? Or did I read it?

  She shakes off the trivial thought and asks, “So when will young Elizabeth be crowned? Next month? Or does it take longer?”

  Charlotte laughs, briefly becoming her normal, cheerful self. “It'll take a lot longer than that! For a start, there's the period of national mourning, then you've got to invite every head of state on the planet to the big event.”

  “Well, the ones we're actually talking to,” adds Tony. “That cuts down the guest list a bit. Unless Stalin turns up uninvited. That would be awkward.”

  “So she's not really Queen until the coronation?” asks Rachel, confused yet again by the British constitution.

  “Oh, she's head of state all right,” replies Charlotte, “but she just hasn't been anointed.”

  “That's right,” puts in Tony, seeing his wife's confusion, “there's a ritual with holy oil, prayers, and so forth. A coronation is a religious ritual. It all dates back to ancient times, when the monarch ruled with God's blessing. Might seem a bit silly to a lot of people nowadays, but I suppose it still has symbolic power.”

  Symbolic power, Rachel thinks. Like the power of alchemists, magicians, and witches. The symbol is the thing, and believing in it can change the world. Here we are in the age of the atom bomb and there's still magic almost everywhere you look.

  “Mummy, can I have a drink of water, and can Bradshaw have a cuddle?”

  The three look round to see Emily Beaumont standing in the kitchen doorway. Six-year-old Emily has her mother's red hair and green eyes with her father's ready smile. Bradshaw, Tony's battered old teddy bear, is dangling from one small hand. The child is sleepy. She gazes from one grown-up to the other, sees they have a visitor and breaks into a huge smile. ‘Auntie’ Charlotte rushes to scoop Emily up. The somber mood vanishes amid giggling and chatter.

  “Now, Emily,” says Tony, “I'm not sure if Bradshaw is the only one who wants a cuddle, is he?”

  “No, I want one too,” his daughter admits, with a very serious face, “but I think his need is even greater than mine!”

  The adults burst out laughing. Emily's tendency to pick up on any grown-up word or phrase she hears has been evident for a while. In a house busy with the journalistic chatter of news and current affairs, there's no shortage of fine phrases for a bright child to draw upon.

  “Why are you out of bed, honey? Couldn't you sleep?” asks Rachel, fetching a glass of water as Charlotte scoops up Emily and sits the girl on her lap.

  “I was asleep, but then I had a scary dream and it woke us both up,” says Emily.

  “Oh dear, was it a very bad dream?” asks Charlotte.

  Emily nods.

  “What was it about, honey?” asks Rachel, handing the water over.

  The girl looks down into the glass, says nothing.

  “Aw, this is no time to go all shy on us! Sometimes telling someone about bad dreams can make them go away. It helps us forget them,” says Charlotte. “Tell me, why don't you? You know I can keep a secret.”

  The little girl whispers in Charlotte's ear, then takes a sip of her water.

  “Well, that doesn't sound too bad!” declares Charlotte, with a discreet wink at Rachel. “I think you and Bradshaw can both safely go back upstairs to bed. And if you like, I'll carry you up and read you a story!”

  “Hooray! A story!” shouts Emily. “Goodnight again, Mummy and Daddy.”

  Charlotte gets up again and carries her goddaughter out of the kitchen.

  “Goodnight,” chorus Tony and Rachel, returning Emily's wave. Tony adds, “Don't keep Auntie Charlotte up too long. It's nearly her bedtime!”

  “I won't!” shouts Emily from halfway up the stairs.

  Tony puts his hand on Rachel's and says, “If it weren't for Charlotte there, we'd be in a bit of a pickle.”

  “Yep, there’s no way I could have gone back to work if it hadn't been for her help,” she agrees.

  “Does Charlotte still get those dizzy spells?” asks Tony. “I didn't like to ask, but she's looking a lot better.”

  “It's fine,” replies Rachel, “she hasn't had one for months now. I think she's as well as she's ever going to be.”

  They fall silent again, pondering the horrors of Furniss Manor, where they nearly died at the hands of the demonic Haunter and the alchemist Edmund Beaumont.

  “And how about you?” he asks. “Everything okay on the ghostly front?”

  “The odd spook pops up here and there, but nothing I can't handle,” she replies truthfully. “The war's been over for seven years now, I think there are fewer souls around who have suffered a traumatic death. But I don't think I'll ever be free of this talent, curse, whatever it is.”

  The Beaumonts talk for another ten minutes, then Charlotte reappears smiling, and resumes her place at the table.

  “Well, she's down and sleeping with Bradshaw,” she says.

  “What was the dream about?” asks Tony.

  Charlotte laughs and says, “Oh, it was just one of those silly things. She said there were some Raggedy Men in her room. They kept whispering to her, apparently, but she didn't understand what they were saying. She didn't seem that
bothered. She wasn't that clear about it being a dream, either. It could even be a game she plays with herself. Might that be it?”

  My God, thinks Rachel, that's what a little girl in Duncaster called the Sentinels back in 194o. The Raggedy Men. They were killers then, maybe they still are?

  “Darling, are you all right?” asks Tony, his hand clutching hers more tightly.

  “Of course,” Rachel says, “it's nothing. I was just thinking about how real nightmares seem to be when you're younger.”

  It must be a coincidence, it can't be the Sentinels, she thinks. They guard the sacred crown on the North Sea coast, a hundred miles away. They can't just roam all over England, can they?

  Rachel finds it hard to concentrate on the conversation for the rest of the evening. Her mind keeps returning to the subject of ghosts, their powers and motives, and her ignorance of their limitations.

  ***

  Later that night in the Whitechapel area of London's East End, a police officer is on patrol. It's cold and wet and Officer Jack Warner keeps up a brisk pace to generate a bit of heat. He makes his regular rounds of the Victorian streets, many still bearing the scars of the Luftwaffe's bombs.

  Britain's post-war economic collapse has left bomb-sites untouched by the state or private enterprise, so others have put them to use.

  When Warner passes a vacant lot between two stores, he sees movement in the shadows cast by the nearest street lamp. He pauses, flicks on his flashlight, and shines the beam across the rubble, the weeds, the drifts of trash. No sign of life.

  Must have been a rat, he thinks. He feels the cold from the sidewalk start to penetrate his thick-soled boots, stamps his feet, and walks on. Warner begins to dream of beans on toast paired with a nice steaming mug of strong tea.

  “Get away from me! I'll scream! I'll call the Peelers, I will!”

  It's a woman's voice from very close behind. Warner spins round, shines his torch again. This time there is someone there, a figure in a long dress and some sort of old-fashioned hat. The woman is backing onto the sidewalk out of the bomb site where she couldn't have been a moment before. She screams and turns as she starts to run. Another figure appears, this one in a top hat and a long dark coat with a cape flying out behind it. A hand whips up and Warner sees a gleam of metal.

  “Hey, stop!” Warner shouts, drawing out his baton as he runs, desperate to cover the few yards before the blade can descend.

  Too late. The woman's second scream becomes a sickening gurgle and Warner sees her fall to the cobbled roadway like a heap of laundry. The top-hatted figure crouches over his victim. His arm rises and falls and there's a vile sound of cloth being slashed open, along with something else.

  “You evil bastard!” shouts Warner, swinging his truncheon around in a vicious arc aimed at the back of the assailant's head. He can hear the swish of the baton through the freezing air, feel his hand shaping the arc. Then comes the shock of impact, but it's weaker than he expects and the truncheon is only slowed, not stopped. Warner loses his balance, falls awkwardly, and finds himself lying on the wet cobbles, alone. No sign of the woman, no sign of her attacker. Bruised, baffled, and feeling vaguely embarrassed, the officer struggles to his feet.

  What the hell just happened? he asks himself. I struck him a glancing blow when I was sure I'd crack the swine's skull, and then he vanishes along with his victim!

  Hope nobody saw me, he thinks, looking around to check. He sees no sign of life apart from a cat dashing into an alleyway.

  Later, when he gets off duty, Warner talks to the night sergeant at the Whitechapel police station. At first, Warner is careful not to give too many details of the incident by the vacant lot. But it only takes a minute for Sergeant Dixon to reassure him.

  “It's all right, lad, you're not going barmy. You're not the only one who's been seeing him, lately. I've heard it from a couple of others on the night patrol.”

  “Who do you mean?” asks Warner.

  “Don't you know, lad? Your patch is right slap in the middle of Jack's old hunting ground! Surprised nobody told you when you were transferred here.. Don't know if something's stirred him up, but it certainly seems like it. Him and all those poor women he killed, of course. Can't have one without the others.”

  Dixon stands up while nursing his mug of tea, and walks to the wall then takes down a framed document. He brings it to the canteen table, puts it in front of Warner, who sees a clipping from a Victorian newspaper.

  “There were loads of theories,” says the sergeant, “but they ended up blaming all the expected, usual scapegoats: foreigners and such. But it was just guesswork and press rabble-rousing. Simple fact is, nobody ever caught him.”

  Warner reads the headline,

  A TAUNTING MESSAGE FROM THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER?

  He skims the old-fashioned journalese and finds a piece of verse. He reads it over several times, while his own mug of tea grows cold at his elbow. It's a crude poem, but the content makes up for any failings of rhyme and scansion.

  “It can't be him,” Warner protests, meeting the sergeant's eyes. “He must have been dead for years now if he was around in 1889.”

  “You're smarter than that, lad,” replies Dixon. “Your namesake died a long time ago. But he's back now, and up to his old tricks. And from what you said, he's not just your regular spook. You're sure you connected, actually hit him?”

  “Yes, I felt it just for a second, then he was gone, like he'd never been there!”

  Dixon picks up the framed clipping and replaces it on the wall.

  “Well, congratulations, you've managed to do what hundreds of decent coppers never did back then. You came close to collaring the bastard.”

  Warner stands up and goes to stand next to his sergeant. They both gaze at the verse that had left the whole world in wonder back in 1889.

  I’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid,

  Nor yet a foreign skipper,

  But I’m your own light-hearted friend,

  Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

  Chapter 1: Preparations

  “Excuse me, are you Tom Kneale?”

  Rachel stands by a small window table at the Lyons’ Corner House restaurant in Fleet Street. It's a typically busy lunch hour in London and the late November rain is blurring the windows. She's been told to meet a slim, thirty-something-year-old man with extremely pale skin who'll be carrying a copy of her book.

  I hope I've got the right guy, she thinks.

  The pale young man looks up from his copy of The Ghosts and the Crown, smiles, and stands up.

  “Miss Rubin? Or is it Mrs. Beaumont? Or indeed Lady Furniss?” he asks, offering his hand.

  “Rachel will be just fine,” she replies, shaking his hands then sitting. “How do you like the book?”

  “Oh, it's quite fascinating,” he says. “A bit far-fetched of course, but I think there's a lot that could be adapted for broadcast with very little editing. Some of it has a wonderfully authentic feel; captures the essence of the traditional British ghost story, as I'm sure many readers have told you.”

  “Yes, they have,” she replies. “People have been very positive, mostly.”

  One day, she thinks, I'll be allowed to tell the public it's all true, and that I only gave them half the story, heavily disguised. Maybe I'll be allowed to do it when I'm an old lady and none of it is Top Secret any more.

  “Would you like me to order some tea?” asks Kneale. “Or do you prefer coffee?”

  “Tea's fine, I've acquired a taste for it since I got here,” Rachel lowers her voice as a waitress approaches, and adds, “Plus anything's better than British coffee!”

  Kneale laughs, then orders without being an asshole to the waitress, something she has noticed a certain type of posh Englishman do.

  Rachel relaxes. That's one of the indicators of a genuine good guy, she thinks, how well one treats the people who can't hit back.

  However, she is still worried about what the BBC might do to her story if she
lets them adapt it, but it seems that this young man is someone she can deal with.

  After they've ordered tea and scones, Kneale opens a briefcase and takes out some documents.

  “I have a contract for you to look at, and of course a query if you think there's anything amiss. Take your time, we're not thinking of broadcasting the series until well into the New Year.”

  Rachel skims the contract and a word catches her eye.

  “Television? I thought it was a radio drama you were scripting, Tom?”

  Kneale raises an eyebrow.

  “Oh dear, that's the production office letting me down again. They should have told you! Yes, originally we were going to make a wireless serial, lots of scary sound effects, all good fun. But with plans afoot to televise the Coronation next year, we're predicting a big increase in the sale of TV sets.”

  “Really?” says Rachel. “I'm surprised they'd let a camera into Westminster Abbey.”

  “I was too!” says Kneale. “But it seems that Churchill is keen to show that Britain is a modern, go-ahead nation. There may be as many as a million television viewers by next summer, imagine that! What's more, we'll be reaching people outside London for the first time. With that big of an audience, we can't keep churning out Shakespeare and Wilde and Bernard Shaw, you know, or any adaptions of the classic novels for that matter. One can have too much Dickens. Original programming, that's the way forward in the Fifties! Especially now that we have a new queen, heralding a new Elizabethan era of progress!”

  Rachel tries to imagine her novel adapted for the small screen but fails. Television might be progress for Kneale, but she doubts it has any real future.

  It's just a gimmick, she thinks, like those dumb 3-D movies. Why would any sane adult sit squinting at a tiny little screen to see people acting badly, or making a soufflé, or talking about politics?

  “Well,” she says tactfully, “I'm obviously happy to have my work produced in any medium, within reason. Although, I've always thought radio was the best way to get a good ghost story across. The pictures are better in your imagination, right?”