Castle Calreagh

Castle Calreagh – Franklin Marsh

Dedicated to Sam - caring, sharing and no mean storyteller.


The crowd in the public gallery gasped and there were shouts of protest as the usher stepped forward bearing the cushion. The judge leaned forward, grasped the square of black cloth, and placed it solemnly upon his head. He clasped his hands together and looked at the prisoner in the dock.

The red eyes stared balefully back at him. The flowing white locks had been shorn, giving the head an even more skull-like appearance. The man’s stance oozed a relaxed defiance, and, despite the rough prison clothes, he retained a seedy grandeur.

“Devereux Delacroix Dementer,” intoned the judge, “you have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes by a jury of twelve good men and true…”

Dementer faced the jury. Twenty male eyes averted themselves. Of the four remaining, two stared avidly, drool slipping from Marian Hardcastle’s smiling lips. The other two were covered by lids. Betty Smithers had fainted. There was a muffled thump as she slid from her seat. Another usher signalled frantically for help.

The journalists couldn’t believe their luck. One went so far as to claim that the tongue that licked the accused’s lips was forked.

“…and so I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

Dementer nodded at the judge and was led away, as the public gallery erupted. Women attacked men calling that hanging was too good for him. The police vainly attempted to restore order.

*****************

Dementer’s request for a last meal was grudgingly requested. He dined heartily on swan. There was consternation when the priest assigned to visit him dropped dead of a heart attack outside his cell door.

*********************

January 1st, 1967. 5 a.m.

A small, dapper man wearing a double breasted suit marched through the labyrinthine corridors, accompanied by two prison officers. He was let into the condemned cell.

Dementer stood erect, facing the door, hands clasped behind his back. The civilian slipped the restraint onto the prisoner’s arms, and the quartet set off for the place of execution.

They entered the small room, and Dementer moved under the noose. The dapper man tightened it around his neck.

“No bag,” said Dementer.

“As you wish,” replied the executioner. “Any final words?”

Dementer smiled.

“Not just yet,” he said politely.

The executioner nodded. An officer pulled the lever. Dementer disappeared through the trapdoor. There was a loud and satisfying crack and the rope pulled taut.

Silence, apart from the creaking of the rope, reigned for a few minutes. The officer by the lever heaved a huge sigh of relief, removed his cap, and wiped his brow.

The dapper man patted his arm embarrassedly.

“Well done, lads,” he said quietly, then moved to look down through the trapdoor.

The second officer noticed his frown.

“Something wrong, Mr. P?”

“No,” said the man. “Just unusual.”

“What’s up, Sir?”

The executioner led the way down the stairs. The three men surveyed the gently swinging body. Dementer’s head was at an unnatural angle. His eyes bugged, burst veins turning them completely red apart from the pupils. His tongue protruded.

“No voiding of the bowels. No ejaculation,” mused the executioner, strolling slowly around the late prisoner.
“Hmmmm?”

The two officers coughed and shuffled their feet. The executioner came out of his trance.

“Oh…er…carry on, gentlemen.”

He left, to collect his pay.

The officers cut down the corpse, leaving the noose around the neck. They placed the body in the cheap plywood coffin, and carried it to the door. A non-descript unmarked van was waiting outside, engine running. They threw the coffin unceremoniously into the back, slammed the doors and watched it drive off.

“Good fucking riddance.”

**************

The van drove slowly around the graveyard to an untidy, overgrown plot at the back. Two donkey-jacketed artisans waited beside an open grave. One joined the prison driver in lifting the coffin out of the van, and dropping it into the muddy hole.

“It’s not the Doctor fella, is it?” asked the other gravedigger nervously.

“Nah,” said the driver. “Some other shit.”

He smoked cigarette after cigarette as he watched them fill in the grave. He remained by the van after they’d finished. They walked away slowly, constantly turning to watch him. He didn’t move.

Sure they’d gone, he stepped forward, unzipped his flies, and urinated on the freshly turned earth. Zipping up, he managed to spit a globule of phlegm onto the damp soil.

“Fucker,” he threw at the grave, and climbed into the van.

****************

Winter dark came early. A shadowy figure slipped over the graveyard wall. It loped to the new unmarked grave. A tiny shovel bit into the earth, and a frenzied digging began, the figure pausing occasionally to wipe its scaled brow.

The shovel struck wood. The shape dropped to its knees and scrabbled at the remaining earth with its odd little hands. It rapped on the wood. A white fist punched straight through the coffin lid. Another hand joined it , tearing away half of the plywood.
Doctor Dementer, long white hair restored, sat up. He turned his head. His neck cracked. He grimaced, and looked at his rescuer.

“Hi, Wade,” he said. “On your own?”

“The others is back at the fairground, Doc. The judge, the police, and all them do-gooders is there. They say they’re gonna take the animals. Compensation for the victims.”

”We’ll see about that,” said the Doc , shakily crawling out of his grave.


Wade and the Doc slipped over the graveyard wall. A British Racing Green Morris Traveller awaited them. Wade drove, whilst the Doc struggled to get changed in the back. His white shirt/black suit ensemble had been laid out for him, along with a bottle of Haig. He took a few quick slugs, then tore a piece from his prison shirt, soaked it in scotch and plugged the neck of the bottle.

The Traveller nosed its way onto the fairground. A portly bearded lady and a young man clad in a sacking jacket and trousers, his exposed flesh covered in flowing reddish hair, stood in front of the big top.

They were being harangued by a crowd of smartly-dressed well-to-do people led by the judge, his wife and a chief inspector of police.

The elephant, Nellie, shifted uneasily in front of the entrance to the tent. A number of cages on wheels containing a large male lion, two Bengal tigers and a polar bear were lined up beside the pachyderm, and some roustabouts were preparing to move them. The bearded lady and the lion-man were protesting.

Wade brought the Traveller to a halt, and the Doc stepped out, punching out a collapsible top-hat, and setting it atop his white hair at a jaunty angle.

“Welcome to the show!” he bawled.

Shocked gasps went up from the crowd. The judge couldn’t believe his eyes.

“You’re dead! You must be! A double? A twin? I-I-I?”

“You-you-you what?” crowed the Doc. He took a lighter emblazoned with World Cup Willie from his jacket and lit the soaked rag. The crowd moved back.

“Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Then let the ceremony begin!” howled Dementer, hurling his Molotov cocktail at the big top. It shattered, Flames blossomed and spread alarmingly quickly.

The Doc made some passes in the air. Nellie trumpeted in rage, stood on her hind legs, then fell forward into the screaming crowd. All of the cages sprang open, and the beasts leaped out, tearing into the confused, milling humanity.

Hester the bearded lady and Leopold the Lion-Man ran for the Traveller. The Doc stalked towards the judge and his wife who clung to one another, screaming at the carnage taking place around them. The darkness, illuminated by the raging inferno, flung shadows of ripping, rending slaughter; a Bosch or Brueghel inspired purgatory.

“It can’t be you,” moaned the judge, as Dementer placed his hands either side of the older man’s face.

“Oh but it is,” supplied the Doc, bringing his hands together and crushing the legal head to pulp.

He wiped his hands on his jacket and turned to the judge’s wife, who was moaning in terror. He removed her hat and threw it into the flames. She sank to her knees sobbing. Sparks from the blaze floated towards her blue rinse, and ignited a spray-can’s worth of lacquer. As her head sizzled, the Doc took a cigar from the breast pocket of his jacket and lit it. He watched her eyes melt and heard her brain fry like a side of bacon.

“Hell of a way to start the year,” he muttered, and walked to the car. Leopold was behind the wheel, Hester in the front passenger seat. Dementer joined Wade in the back.

“Let’s go, Leopold.”

“Where to, Doc?”

“Head North.”

“We getting off this Godforsaken little island?”

“Sure. We’ll soon be back in the New World. There’s just something I have to do first.”

The Morris Traveller moved away from the conflagration.

“What?ll happen to the animals, Doc?” asked Hester.

“They’ll be killed.”

“I thought the Brits liked animals?”

“Not killers. Or Man-eaters. They’re wild animals, Hester. Just lucky they got a chance to be really wild before they die.”

The Doc lapsed into silence as the little car sped through the night.


It took them five days to reach the highlands of Scotland.

The Traveller turned from the main road and bounced down a rutted track. At the end of it was an earthen cottage perched precariously by the sea. A paddock containing two horses was on the left. The light, misty rain and what seemed like cloud formations at ground level obscured the ocean, but the oddities could hear the crash of the surf as they disembarked.

“Whoa!”

Everyone turned at Hester’s call. A gust of wind had moved the misty billows to reveal a castle. It seemed to be sitting in the clouds, tall and majestic.

Dementer led the way into the tiny cottage, stooping to get through the door. As eyes became accustomed to the dark, a crofter or fisherman could be made out, sat by one of the tiny windows, clad in folded-down Wellingtons, shapeless baggy black trousers, a huge chunky dark-blue Arran sweater with matching hat. His face was stained a deep dark brown by constant exposure to wind and salt water, and it was set off nicely by his white stubble and light blue eyes.

“William.”

“Doctor.”

“Can my friends and I stay tonight?”

“Aye.”

The Doctor led the oddities to a curtain. He pulled it back to reveal a small room stacked with mattresses.

“Get some rest. William and I will be going to the castle tomorrow. I want you to stay here and keep a lookout. There may be danger.”

He stepped out of the room and let the curtain fall.

******

Try as he might, Wade couldn’t sleep. Leopold snored and Hester gently wheezed. The alligator boy strained his scaled ears to hear what the Doc and the old crofter were talking about, but he couldn’t make out the words.

He must have dozed off eventually, for he was awoken by the front door closing. He scrambled across the cottage to one of the tiny windows.

The Doc and William were on a shingle beach just below the house. They were dragging a small motor boat into the water.

Wade looked up and gasped. The mist and clouds had cleared. They were situated in a small bay, and in that bay was a small island. Atop the island sat the magnificent castle.

The outboard motor roared into life, propelling the boat towards the island.

**************************

As they neared a small stone jetty, shouts rang out from the island. Dementer looked up to see an obese figure in an obscure uniform struggling down the stone steps from the castle to the jetty.

“Keep away! Go away! No trespassing! Schwein!!”

A smile slowly formed on Dementer lips. William hunched over the outboard and guided the boat alongside the jetty. The Doc sprang ashore just as the island guardian waddled up the jetty.

“I said clear off. No?”

He caught sight of the Doc’s smiling face.

“Du! Verdammte Klown!”

“Hello, Gunther,” drawled the Doc, landing a perfect left hook on the uniformed man’s chin as he struggled to draw pistol from a belt holster.

Gunther went down like a felled tree. William made the boat fast to a jetty post, and pulled another length of rope from under his seat. Dementer tipped the guardian into the boat with his feet.

Crofter and Doctor nodded at one another, and Dementer set out to climb the 144 stone steps. He looked up and stopped. Silhouetted against the horizon at the top of the steps was a woman. With no protection from the wind, her bright red hair was whipped across her face, and her blue and green tartan dress curled around her body.

As Dementer set off again, she turned and walked toward the castle. Her profile made the Doctor gasp, and begin to race upward.

He reached the entrance to the castle and glanced up at the black portcullis, hanging above him like a many-bladed Sword of Damocles. Being on an island, the fortress had no need of a moat.

Dementer walked through the entrance into a courtyard. It was crowded with geese, chickens and seagulls. The Doc heard the cawing of carrion crows on the battlements, and saw a golden eagle glide overhead.

He entered the building itself. Walking down a short hall, he strolled into the dining room.

She sat at the head of the table. He made to sit opposite, but she beckoned him closer. As he advanced, he saw that she was sat a little way away from the table, clutching her massively protuberant belly. Her breathing was coming in short gasps, and she was sweating.

“How close?” he asked.

“Imminent.”

“Is he here?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He comes and goes. Like some others…”
Her glance was venomous, but that could have been the pain.

“I heard Gunther shouting. I thought it might be him, but…”?

She groaned aloud.

He gently picked her up from the chair and carried her towards the bedrooms. She refused to go into the Master, instead choosing a much more simple and Spartan room.

Dementer fetched hot water and towels.

“The contractions are starting,” she groaned. “Oh Dev, I hope it’s a girl…”

It was a relatively short labour. She fainted as the baby girl entered the world. Dementer bit through the cord and tied it. He cleaned mother and baby. He tapped the baby’s bottom, and she cried lustily.

“Feisty, eh? Like your mother,” said the Doctor.

As he dried the baby’s hair, he stared, fascinated. It had been blessed with a thick, dark thatch. But there was a little fair line running down one side.

He looked at the mother, to see Morag awake and staring at him. He handed over the infant.

“She’s beautiful. I shall call her Lorelei,” Morag sighed.
The Doc paused at the bedroom door.

“Anything you need?”

“I have all I need,” replied Morag, cradling the tiny baby.

“Is he likely to come back soon?”

They stared at one another.

“I’ve no idea.”

“Call if you need me,” said Dementer tersely, turning away.

He left the castle and started down the steps to the jetty. His pace increased as he realised that he could see neither William nor Gunther by the boat.

William was laid out in the bottom of the craft, his mouth a grinning rictus in death. A second grin beamed from his slashed throat, and eight pints of blood had soaked into his clothes and the wood of the boat.

Dementer hurried back to the castle and checked the bedroom. Mother and baby slept soundly. He listened but could hear no sound.

He wandered, aimlessly at first, then down a spiral flight of stairs, some instinct compelling him to go underground. He passed three dungeons in a passageway hewn into solid rock. To his surprise, one was occupied. A midget slept soundly upon a wooden pallet, whilst a man-monster, a hairless gorilla slumbered on the straw-strewn stone floor.

Dementer opened the door, and removed their chains. They did not stir. He smiled and moved on.

He’d expected it to be cool, if not cold, down in the depths, but it was warm. He could hear machinery. Opening the next door he came to, he discovered a laboratory. Test-tubes whirled in centrifuges. Petri dishes containing cultures were everywhere.

Dementer examined a couple. He couldn’t be 100% sure, but would have bet on anthrax and cholera. There was a door at the far end of the lab. He opened it, then closed it quickly. Taking his time, he opened it again and slipped through.

Gunther was in the next room, engrossed by flashing lights, twitching dials and a set of instructions for the machine he was playing with. The far end of this room was a large picture window. Through it the Doc saw a medium sized rocket, the equivalent of a World War II V2.

Dementer stepped back into the laboratory, located a hypodermic needle and filled it from a Petri dish. He re-entered the far room. Gunther saw him reflected in the window and reached for his pistol.

The Doc struck like a cobra, emptying the hypo into Gunther’s neck. The guardian collapsed to the floor, hyperventilating and frothing at the mouth. It took about five minutes.

Dementer turned off the machine Gunther had been enthralled by, and walked back to the corridor.

The midget and the monster stood, waiting for him.

“I’m Dick,” said the midget, “and this is Claude.”

“Doctor Dementer. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Come with me, gentlemen.”

As they ascended the stone staircase, a blood-curdling shriek echoed throughout the castle. Dementer ran towards it’s source. He stopped in the dining room, as a blood-spattered Morag staggered in from the other side.

“He’s taken my baby!” she screamed, lurching toward the wall. The wall that was decorated with all manner of weaponry. Morag elected to seize a battleaxe. In ordinary circumstances, the Doc was sure she couldn’t have even lifted it but her frenzy gave her unimagined strength.

Dementer tried to stop her, but she saw only baby-snatchers and struck at him, missing by inches. The axe imbedded itself in the wooden table, and Morag desperately tried to free it.
Before the Doctor could do anything, Claude’s massive hand encircled her throat and squeezed.

Dementer turned away as he heard the neck being crushed. A gobbet of bright red blood shot from her mouth. The monster’s grip relaxed and Morag’s head flopped unnaturally behind her shoulders, before the whole body crashed to the floor.

The Doc nodded at his companions and raced for the door. He reached the top of the steps leading down to the jetty in time to see a bald, powerfully built man in a powder blue suit with dark blue cravat leap into William’s boat.

Dementer raced down the steps, watching the man gently place a white bundle in the prow of the boat, and untie the mooring rope. The Doc reached the end of the jetty as the outboard roared, and the small craft powered away from the island.

He almost dived into the sea after them, but pulled up short. Dick was astride Claude’s shoulders and frantically pointing to the left. The Doc looked around feverishly. Another boat! It was leaky and unstable, but the trio climbed aboard. A few minutes elapsed as Dick and the Doc showed Claude how to row. Time well spent as the decrepit craft fair flew across the sparkling water, past the floating corpse of William, the Doc poised at the front like Washington crossing the Delaware.

He leaped from the vessel and splashed ashore. William’s earthen cottage had collapsed upon itself. The Morris Traveller was gone. The Doc began clawing at the earth, joined by Claude and Dick. They uncovered Hester, Leopold and Wade, and revived them with water from the horse trough. They’d been watching from the cottage when it collapsed around them, thinking at first that the returning boat contained the Doc, but recognising the burly bald man when it was too late.

“He had something with him,” said a concerned Hester. “Looked…well, looked like a baby.”

“My daughter.”

Silence.

The Doc bit his lip and felt tears in his eyes. Lost control. Shown weakness.

Recovering his composure, Dementer signalled to Claude, and the huge creature retrieved a battered cart from nearby. The Doc dug up bridles and traces and hitched the two horses to the cart. The oddities climbed aboard, and Dementer flicked the reins. They set off at a slow jog-trot.

Wade coughed.

“Doc. Shouldn’t we be going faster? He’s got a car and…”

“It don’t matter, Wade. We’ll find them. After all, we’ve got ‘til the end of time.”