He was at work when the madness first began. There was no obvious cause or trigger; just a repeated invasion of multiplying dark terrors, incompletely formed but completely menacing, that circled and rushed in on him without warning.

To begin with it was only a small shadow flitting across his desk and a darting movement at the far corner of his vision. He wonder if a bird might have got into the office, but a glance round showed none. These first times, he would simply blink and shake his head, or say something inconsequential to a colleague to reconnect himself with reality and make human contact, and the terrors would recede. But they always came back; oftener, harder and with heightened malice, until one day, seated at his desk surrounded by quietly busy workmates and humming computers, he began to scream continuously, clutching his fists to his brow, and tumbled to the blue office carpet in a foetal curl.

They sent him home in a taxi accompanied by two colleagues to check his safety, for they knew he lived alone. One of them called his doctor, who administered a sedative, and they sat with him till it took effect, then left, for they had families and teas waiting. Neighbours took turns to look in.

But his mental state worsened, and the neighbours feared for his sanity and their safety, so his doctor was again summoned, and he was taken in an unmarked ambulance to a therapeutic centre deep in quiet countryside. The company paid his full salary for six months, and half-pay for a further six. But he was not yet recovered, and the centre's doctors prescribed an indeterminate stay, whereupon the company released him on half pension. After five more months, aged 37, he was sent home to heal peacefully alone.

His home was in Milton Keynes – a tidy but not spacious estate dwelling identical to many hundred others. This anonymity suited him, as did the city, whose geometric patterns and concrete modernity spoke to him reassuringly of science and reason's triumph over madness and disorder.

His house had a feature unusual for the town – behind it lay a small woodland, a windbreak for the demolished farm that had once stood there. Bounded by six-foot lap fences on each side and the spinney behind, his little back garden was an oasis of privacy where he could sit or lie – naked if he wished and it was warm enough – smelling the fragrant grass, lolling under the overhanging ash and sycamores, watching the birds, squirrels, foxes and, on one occasion even a muntjac deer, that, like himself, had made the garden their sanctuary. Slowly his mind continued to make the partial recovery which the centre's doctors had said was the best he could hope for.

He took to taking long walks, for he lived near the city's edge with countryside close by. He especially loved the canal, whose loop took him through fields with cattle, behind the brow of a hill out of sight of the town. He had always taken pleasure in cattle, loving their soft coats and wet questing muzzles and exploratory tongues. He thought of them fondly, protectively even, as clumsy, gentle, and harmless – even bulls didn't really trouble him though he knew to treat them circumspectly. Downhill from the canal, by the ruined church where it was said that white, therefore benign, witches gathered, he would stand completely still with hand outstretched, surrounded by a throng of curious, hesitant bullocks till the first animal, advancing in cautious spurts, extended a tentative tongue to lick the proffered fingers, immediately clumping away again. This usually prompted the whole herd to lumber a few paces backward then stand, breathing heavily, before another steer ventured to advance. Another time, the fields were filled with cows accompanied by an imposing dun bull with fur that was shaggy and bison-like on his neck, and tightly curled on his brow. The man kept behind a gate (broken, he noted) but stretched his hand over, and  was rewarded when the massive beast licked his fingers. On the bull's ear-tag was his name, 'King Saul'. The man thought this an amusing name for a bull. 

On nights when sleep was slow to come, he lay attentive to the sounds of the house, its timber framework cracking and creaking as the night cooled. At first he had been alarmed, fearing stealthy feet were climbing the stairs, but after fifteen years' residence had become accustomed to the house's noises. Sometimes he was aware of a faint rumbling, too slight to be distinct but too insistent to be ignored, and wondered if it was the boiler flame, or traffic on the two-mile-distant motorway. The sound was not present every night, and never in the day (which seemed odd, as the motorway was much busier then,) but when it recurred, it always seemed a little louder than earlier. He attributed this to whether the wind was blowing directly from the motorway. But once when, on a long car journey, he stopped to eat a mid-day sandwich deep in silent countryside, he heard it again, and was puzzled.

One blowy morning he strolled along the canal, pleased to see the bullocks grazing round the ruined church as usual. As always, he leaned on the broken gate and offered his hand. But the animals seemed edgy and wary, and he wondered if they were a new batch, then was surprised to hear the rumbling, and experienced a strange full-headedness as if his ears were blocked and making him dizzy. He staggered back to the canal where the breeze was ruffling the surface, blurring the reeds and clouds mirrored in it. Glancing in he glimpsed for the briefest instant not his own face but a horned head staring back at him. He swung round to see if any cattle had strayed on to the towpath, but there were none near, and he remembered they were in any case all polled. In the water he now saw only his own rippled image.

That night he had a waking dream that something was floating in through the closed window; something not quite formed or perhaps crudely dismembered, which brushed against him horribly. It was bringing evil into the house -  he just knew that.  A sharp noise like an exploding flashbulb roused him, but the sound was part of the dream and the house was quiet. Only the rumbling was evident, but as he was alone with no-one to confirm it, he could ascribe it to traffic. He feared to sleep again, but when he did, it was mercifully dreamless.

The following afternoon, despite a grey sky that threatened rain, he once more took a walk along the canal, needing the gentle cattle to soothe nerves still raw from the night before. Rounding the loop, his heart was gladdened to see the size of the herd. The gate was missing –  no doubt the farmer had removed it for repair. Still, he happily advanced between the posts and stood with hand outstretched as usual. But the cattle began to mill around among themselves, glancing repeatedly at him, cantering and colliding with each other, forming a restless mob as if rounded up by an unseen herdsman.

It was then he recognised – loud and unmistakable- the queer rumbling noise that had haunted him for so long. It was the thud and thunder of hooves, as first one, then several, then the entire herd stampeded towards him. For a second he stood transfixed, not quite able to believe what was occurring, then turned to run, but the gate being missing there was no sanctuary. The animals rushed upon him, prancing, jostling – he noticed froth on many of their muzzles. Inevitably he fell, crying as hooves pierced and ruptured his body, while above a horned head loomed, though he knew all these cattle were hornless. That was his last ever sight, for his consciousness ceased at that moment, and he never regained it. The farmer, returning with the mended gate, discovered his trampled remains.

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

In the office the girls had set up a ouija during lunch break, with letters done with marker pen on torn-up  computer print, and a plastic cup from the coffee machine for a glass. Eve, Janice, Kaz and Michelle pushed their chairs across the blue carpet to sit round Christa's desk, while the two boys, Neil and Adam, too manly and sophisticated to engage in girly nonsense, looked on, munching sandwiches and swigging coffee. Only Jill remained at her desk and took no part.

The man had loved Christa for months, but too desperately, and she had, as she put it, got pissed off with him, thought him a loser and pathetic. As he had become more insistent so she had found him increasingly tiresome, and finally dealt an unequivocal rebuff .

The girls regarded their ouija as a mere distraction. They laughed and joked, each with an eye on the watching young men. As the 'glass' shifted and only nonsense letter combinations came up, they giggled the louder, and accused each other of pushing it. 'Are you supposed to make a wish?'  asked Eve. 'Make a wish if you like,' Christa replied. Then she said, 'Come on, let's be serious,' so they stopped laughing, and concentrated, and tried a few more times, but no message came.

But Christa was convinced a message was coming. To make it more believable, she shuffled the letters then laid them face down, and bade Neil to turn the paper on which the glass stopped so the girls could not see it, then note the chosen letter secretly, so the girls could not be influenced.  But again, this only yielded nonsense words, more nonsense, and still more.

Then abruptly the  glass started to move.

“You pushed it” shouted Eve.

“No I didn't” retorted Janice.

“Quiet!” cried Christa.

“You'll regret this, I promise you,” said Jill over at her desk. She was pious, and believed in the Devil.

The plastic cup slid smoothly and purposefully, Neil noting the  letters. After nine moves, the cup stopped. “Is that it?” somebody said. Neil had been looking more and more uneasy. The girls turned to him; lunch break was almost over, they must return to their work in a moment; what was the message? Neil seemed loth to say. They teased and scolded him – told him to stop taking the piss. Finally Eve snatched the paper from his hand, glanced at it, and her face changed. The others picked up on the change of atmosphere, and Jill made a sign of the cross.

Finally Christa said “Give give me that” and seized it. “Oh my god!” she shrieked. Then Kaz and Michelle grabbed the paper and laid it on the table where all could read it.

It read 'KILL HENRY.'

The man's name was Henry.

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

The office day was over, and rain had set in. Christa had got unpleasantly wet running from the building to her car, and by the time she joined the motorway the rain had turned torrential. Even at their full speed, her wipers could barely cope.

She dreaded motorway driving in these conditions, with huge roaring lorries hemming in her small car on all sides, and throwing spray in blinding waves. The headlamps of a truck close behind dazzled in her rear-view mirror, and the spray made distracting patterns on the windscreen. Something about the patterns captivated her – they seemed always about to coalesce into a shape without ever quite attaining it. It was when the shape took a horned outline and the lights behind became glowing eyes that the fatal accident occurred.

Jill, when she heard of the two deaths, said that just as when in a foreign country one inevitably finds oneself among natives of that land, so Christa, having visited the occult, had found herself treating with demons, for that is their territory.

Copyright © James Scott 2007

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