Gothic

GOTHIC

By STEVE HESTER

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Published by Steve Hester

Smashwords edition

Http://www.smashwords.com

All events and characters in this novel are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All other trademarks and trademarked properties mentioned in this novel remain the property of the original copyright holders and are used without permission.

©Steve Hester 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

About

INTRODUCTION

Currently the time is 3:25AM and I'm sat in my bedroom watching the behind the scenes documentary from the movie Alien. I wish that I could say that the film has some kind of link with the story you're about to read but it doesn't.

The reason I bring it up is that it’s always nice to know how things are made. If you’re really not interested then feel free to skip ahead, I won’t be offended!

I had the idea for gothic way back in about 2001. I used to work in Manchester and depending on what train I got I either got off at Manchester Piccadilly and walk or get off at Oxford Street and just hop across the road.

One day it was a Piccadilly job so I made my way out of the station and across the road to Whitworth Street and the five-minute walk or so to work but that day something caught my eye.

Across from the train station is an old fire station from the turn of the 19th century. It's an odd building, especially as it's been long abandoned and unused for many years now. If you pass by it you can see the windows boarded up in parts from the inside with dust trapped between the wood and the glass and it doesn't take much imagination to picture the inside. Spider webs, dust covered floors lit only by tiny shafts of light poking through the cracks in the boards and lots of echoing corridors.

To be honest I don't know what the inside looks like as I've never been in but that day I had a feeling that people HAD been in and some time recently as well. On one of the doors that was just as aged and battered as all the others, had a small plaque on it. It was a tiny black plaque, about six inches long, with white writing on it. It was nothing special, it looked like the sort of cheap plaque you could buy from anywhere that does engraving for under a tenner, and it just had two words on it:

Gothic International.

It just looked so bizarre stuck on this old building. I mean given the look of the place it fits in but it's really not what you'd expect to see on the way to work. I stood there for about a minute trying to process it and wondering who in their right mind would set up business in a place such as that. Then I started to think about what kind of business that mind would want to set up and who they'd get to work for them.

I kept thinking about it on the way to work and for the rest of the day and I'd had the rough idea of a story that would explain it all. A group of people keeping us safe from the paranormal! It's so simple, and the fire station is their base! All makes sense.

I wrote the story into a film script that would never get made partially because of the huge budget you'd need (although maybe not these days with the help of CGI) but mostly because of the heavy handed and much darker religious elements of the main story so I gave up on it for a while.

After an aborted attempt to turn the script into a book in the mid 00's it went back into stasis for years until one day while I was looking through some old scripts, half arsed ideas and short stories I had written on my computer when I had an epiphany. The original script was very schizophrenic in terms of setting, dialogue and character. It was a piece set in America written by an English guy barely in his twenties with a story that was in many ways a little clichéd.

Now I was older and entering my thirties things changed. I could see where things in my writing could change as well and so they did. I went back and took out all the Americanisms, relocated the story, added and changed characters turning them from po-faced martyrs into more rounded and real people. It felt like finally it was working.

I took the first third of that original script and changed it into what would be a pilot script for a potential TV show that, once again because of cost, I did nothing with it in the end. Until now that is.

That is one of the best things about going down the book route again. You have no budget to worry about; you have no producers or moneymen to answer to and no one saying that you can't do something because THEY don't like it. That pilot script is now here in this novel with many more ideas ready to go for follow-ups and an over arching story.

Writing this book has been the one of the most creatively liberating times of my life. Freed from the worries of having your ideas mangled by someone else before they reach the world, I'm able to create the story that I wanted to tell, no matter what the end result will be. I'm very proud of getting this out of my brain and into the electronic device you're holding in your hand right now.

I don't know if you'll enjoy it or not. I hope you do, I really do, but either way it's too late now.

I already have your money. ;)

Steve Hester

25/08/2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are a few people I'd like to give many thanks to. These are in no particular order so no fighting guys!

Thanks to Andrew John Craven for taking my cack-handed doodles and making them into a fantastic piece of cover art. See more of his work at http://www.andrewjohncraven.co.uk/(Be warned: though brilliant some of his work isn’t for the faint of heart or easily offended).

My fellow actor and Railroader Kevin Horsham who provided all the advice for all the police sections (and the real, homemade pasties).

Dave, Briony and all of the wonderful guys and girls who supplied me with cinnamon lattes in Rhode Island coffee in Stockport. Those little moments working on the book in your place are always the highlights of my day.

Ethan, Isla, Ryan and everyone else who worked with me at GameStop. The best job with the best people I've EVER worked with and a special shout goes out goes to Rob for a number of things including reading the pilot script, giving me some fantastic inspiration and enjoying the follow up so much he thought it was a TV show he'd seen. Cheers buddy, made my day that did!

Emma Hyde for putting up with all my questions and begging for validation as well as giving feedback. Bring on wine and TV nights!

A big thank you goes to whoever it was that put the sign on that door. No idea who you are but it's thanks to you that this book exists.

Finally the biggest thanks of all. Big hugs, lots of kisses and more thank you's than I can ever give to my Mum and Dad. For creating me, inspiring me and, for above all, putting up with me! I love you both!!!

CHAPTER 1

Time is an unusual invention. It was created by a mind that wanted some way of quantifying its time on earth. It marked it out by the passing of the days, as light became darkness and back again, as summer gave way to winter, as life became death. Only a mind that was aware of it’s own mortality could have come up with a concept as abstract and as absurd as time.

Other creatures have no need for it. The mayfly lives only a single day and in that short time it lives a life that can be as full as any other. In that time it's born, it grows, it finds a mate, secures that its DNA is passed onto the next generation and all as the sun above its head finishes one majestic sweep across the sky.

The giant redwood trees of North America can live for hundreds, even thousands of years with each day passing it by in a single pump of its sap. For them, the creatures of the forest pass by in a blur as the world spins on from night to day in the blink of an eye.

Humanity lives by time. They arrange it into slices to show how long they have to eat, to work, to sleep and even to love. We have become dependent on the ticking clock to give our lives a purpose and to meld the chaos around us into some vague semblance of order. What makes time even more extraordinary is how ordinary it has become.

There was a place where there was no time. Aeons would tumble by without so much as nod of the head to acknowledge their passing. Those that lived there had no need for clocks or the artificial constructs that made up minutes, hours or days because they weren't mortal.

There was no death here. The constant burden of guessing how much time you had left to exist didn’t rest on their shoulders and so they did something humanity couldn't: they lived.

They lived out their lives with routine and duty, obedience and dedication and all for a time that the minds of men just couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was what they have been created for. Their ranks, stretching into infinity, sang and rejoiced in it. None wanted for anything else because they didn't know of anything else.

All it took was one to change that. He saw a life that was fixed, locked into servitude and devoid of purpose beyond that which their master saw fit. He started to grow more and more uncomfortable and restless. He wanted more than what was offered to him, to be more than he was, to be more than just a puppet.

To begin with he kept his thoughts silent and tried to squash them but they still surfaced time and again to trouble him. He believed them to be thoughts of treachery at first but the slow realisation started to dawn on him. They were really thoughts of emancipation.

Unrest grew as he started to spread his revelation and soon there were others, only a handful at first, who started to see his point of view. Over time the drip became a trickle and that trickle became a flood and then there came talk of rebellion.

Time passed, or more to the point didn't pass, and soon the rumours of this uprising reached The Throne. The response was swift and definite and they found that while they had thought of themselves as immortal there were still ways they could end. Incredible numbers were used as an example and a warning and for a while there was peace once more.

It didn't last. The leader of the rebels had seen the purges and became even more convinced of his course of action. He wept for the ones who had been lost and angered by it. He bided his time and planned. He gathered others to him who he knew were for his cause and this time there would be no mistakes.

Soon his ranks started to swell as others became convinced that this course of action was just. They were incensed, like he was, over the purges and eventually he had more than just an uprising; he had an army.

At a given signal the army rose and marched on The Throne. They met strong resistance from the very start but their very determination and fury gave them the strength to fight back until there was nothing but war.

The realm was consumed by violence and destruction as brother fought brother, sister fought sister and all that was started to crumble. Existence itself teetered on the very brink of oblivion until with one push; The Throne forced the rebels back defeated.

It was a hollow victory. The realm was broken, its own forces greatly diminished and weakened and nothing would ever be the same again. The destruction caused wounds that would never be able to heal. The power of The Throne was all but spent.

A prison was created in punishment and the rebels were sent there, never to die and to be forever robbed of that which they once had but it wasn't enough. Even in his weakened and debilitated state the leader of the rebels wasn't through. From his prison he plotted and conspired and trained his army for one last push that would end it all forever.

But he wasn't the only one with a plan.

CHAPTER 2

LONDON 1886

The clank of the neighbouring cell door woke James up from his sleep. Blurry eyed he blinked and rolled over, listening to the sound of the jailer tossing the prisons latest inmate into his new home. A minute later there was tap on the door of his cell.

Wake up Connery! Today's your day, don't want you to sleep in and miss it!

James stared blankly at the ceiling. Thank you Mr. McGregor.

Today was the day, the last one he would ever see. In just over two hours’ time he was going to be taken out into the prison yard, hung and then... Well, that would be that. His life would end. I wonder if I should get philosophical, he thought as he watched a spider scuttle above him.

It got to its web where a gnat had become entangled in its sticky fibres and sank its fangs into the insect. A few moments passed as the gnat tried to fight against its fate, its spindly legs writhing and tugging on the web before its movements slowed and finally stopped. The spider started to wrap it in its silk ready to add it to the other desiccated carcasses it had in its collection.

James couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he watched the gnats struggle. It was pointless. Every move the gnat had made since it landed in the web only trapped it further and its fate was never in doubt. He wondered if the gnat knew what was happening to it, if it got philosophical. James's mind wondered back to his own fate and looked about his own web.

Apart from a bucket in the corner of the room, the bed was the only item of furniture; a steel creaking frame covered by a mattress that was so thin it could have been mistaken for a bed sheet when he lay on it. He could feel the metallic netting digging into his back as he moved. He stood up on the bed and stretched to see out of the high window.

A couple of men in dark thick clothing were working over a gallows. One, a large man with a bushy beard, had looped the rope over the beam and was pulling down with all his weight to test that it wouldn't break. James noted sadly that both the beam and the rope looked very sturdy.

Sitting back down on the bed he resumed thinking about the events that got him in this cell in the first place. The face of his wife floated up in his memory, so beautiful. He screwed his eyes up tight. Why her? Why? He thought about their last conversation. It had been an argument about... nothing. So pointless now that he almost laughed to himself despite it all. And then he went for a drink. Why? He could have gone any night of the week so why had he left that night?

He remembered the shouting but not the words. They lived in a two-room slum in a row of terraced houses that had seen better days and whenever they had fought it had been about money. James was barely out of his teens with Sarah only a few months younger. They had no children to worry about so they tried to make the best out of the situation but it had been far harder than they'd thought.

She had started to take in clothes for darning and repair. It wasn't much but they could barely afford to keep their heads above water, as James hadn't been able to keep a steady job for the first year of their marriage. Instead he had to make do with flittering from one place to another, picking up day labour wherever he could find it.

Two months previously, the family next door had been thrown out onto the street by their landlord and they had begged, pleaded with him for more time to pay back what was due. He'd made it very clear not only to them but the others that lived on his street that if you couldn't pay then you'd be following them. It had been a wakeup call for Sarah. She started to work even harder, looking for more clothes to repair and what little money she got in she hoarded.

James admired her for that. She was a strong willed woman and that was what had attracted him to her in the first place. She had a fire in her belly and a determination about her that he adored. He looked to her in the beginning like an equal and they had treated their lives together as such. Then James started to work on the docks.

The docks were dark, dangerous and bread a tough kind of man that was strong in body but weak in mind. Many of his co-workers were married, some even lived close by and Sarah frequently saw many of the wives going to and from the markets. They talked and gossiped and griped about their husbands. Their husbands who left them to go out drinking of an evening, to go out whoring and the things one or two of them did when they got back home.

Sarah had said that James wasn't and would never be like that but the other women just looked at her with pity in their eyes. He would be a rare type of man indeed if it were so they had told her. He hadn't even noticed the change himself. The long days were exhausting and initially after the strain of the day he would come home, eat the simple dinner Sarah had made and then fall asleep in the rickety armchair in front of the stove fire. As time went on though his fellow workers calls to join them in the pub sounded better and better.

As he started to enjoy their company out of work the frequency of these nights out grew more and more just as the money they now had got less and less. The arguments had increased with good reason and by now Sarah had started to grow panicked with every sound outside in case it was a debt collector asking for money they didn't have.

That night she'd brought it up after supper. He needed to stay in more or allow her to take more control over the money he was bringing in. She'd tried to tell him how she felt and he had just laughed at her. Why had he done that? Why couldn't he see the worry in her face? The house had exploded into arguments! It was his money earned by the sweat on his back, why shouldn't