The Annals of Fear

"How did you survive Wammy\'s House?" Mello asked suddenly. They were all sitting on Deontic\'s airbed, with their backs against the settee. Mello and Deontic flanked Matt and Century in their centre. The metallic clanging had not long stopped. Matt\'s whole body was curled into Mello, with his knees up and a PSP perched upon them. Mello\'s arm around him occasionally tightened in reassurance. "Dee, what did you do?"



"What do you mean \'survive\'?"



"The pressure. The constant crap from arseholes like me."



Deontic stared ahead. "I just studied."



Mello shook his head. "We all just studied. But there had to be more. We didn\'t crack under it like A and B. We made it to the finishing line." His gloved hand stroked Matt\'s side. "I\'m not asking for your weaknesses. I\'m asking you to remember the things that kept you going, because I\'m certain that we\'re all going to need them before this case is out."



"I did my duty. I always did what was expected of me." Deontic swallowed. "I studied hard."



"So you went the workaholic route, like me." Mello smiled. "Most of us did."



Century took a sip of water. "Mello, did you put those presents down from Sion Corn?"



"Huh?"



"Two Christmasses in a trot, when I was little, I had presents waiting under the tree from Sion Corn. Then I grew up and he stopped coming." He glanced across. "Was that you?"



"Why on Earth would it have been me?"



"Because both years you were lying in wait for me to find them."



Mello uttered a little chuckle. "No, it wasn\'t me. I just heard you going down."



Century nodded. "It wasn\'t Chrissie or Salvo either. I asked."



"Then it was Sion Corn." Mello shrugged. "Your version of Father Christmas did better than mine. I can tell you." He peered down at Matt. "How you doing in there?"



Matt sniffed. There were still traces of tears on his cheeks, but his goggles had been wiped clean and placed back over his eyes. "I\'m ok."



Mello nodded. "Then let me..."



Century coughed. "It was Fenian." They all stared at him. "Who kept me sane. He kept making me sit down and remember all that it was to be Welsh. He learned and spoke Welsh with me when we were alone. He was forever bringing me Alexander Cordell books to read. That was a real eye-opener." He looked as though he was going to say more in explanation of that, but swallowed the words and continued along the original track. "I think I became more Welsh at Wammy\'s House than I did at home with my Mam and Da." Century laughed. "Fenian said that the English had been trying to eradicate us Celts for hundreds of years, which is true. He viewed our incarceration at Wammy\'s House as an extension of that. The big problem being that all the staff were English, of course. Fenian probably wouldn\'t have been so Fenian had the institution been in France or something. It became a Celtic us against them thing, with the whole weight of history on our side. It gave me something to think about and somewhere to run too. Quite important when you\'re at Wammy\'s House, I think."



Mello and Deontic stared at him blankly. Mello frowned. "Fenian really thought that the English had abducted him because he\'s Irish?"



"I dunno, do I? I think so." Century thought about it. "Probably not, but it was better than the alternative. You get more allies if you\'re Irish than you do if you\'re just a disappeared genius child."



Deontic smiled, "It wasn\'t the cause, it was the friendship which kept you sane. I had friends too."



"Friends who\'d stab you in the back for an extra grade."



"No." Deontic shrugged. "Because none of my closest friends were in direct competition with me. I was mostly sandwiched between Matt and Nathalie. Me and Nat didn\'t become proper friends until after the rankings had been closed down; and Matt wouldn\'t spit on me if I was on fire."



Matt looked up from his game. He didn\'t reply, so Mello kissed him. It was Mello who answered for him. "He probably would have, if the situation went to the wire. He\'d fight for you in this house. I know him."



Deontic nodded, then squeezed out from her position at the corner between the settee and the armchair. She collected her notebook and sat back down. "For what it\'s worth, I\'m glad that, if I\'ve got to be stuck here with anyone. It\'s you three. I know your intelligence and your specialisms and I think that we will make it out." She consulted her notes. "The band did a ritual. Mello, you identified a \'flyer\'. Tell us about this flyer and why you think that\'s what is after us."



"Have you ever read any of Carlos Castañeda\'s works?" Mello asked.



Deontic shook her head, but made a note. Century glanced across at him, "I started one book. It read like hippy shit, so I didn\'t get very far."



"Which did you read?"



Century shrugged. "I can\'t remember."



Mello wriggled to gain a more comfortable seat, cuddling Matt into himself. "When I was about sixteen, I stayed with someone, who was heavily into Carlos Castañeda. I mean to the point of throwing away all of his wordly ties and possessions. He\'d been an executive in a bank, but ended up walking out on his wife and family, giving up the job and the stuff. He just left everything he owned as a present for his wife, then went onto the streets. People thought he was a madman and he probably was." Mello stretched to try and retrieve another chocolate bar without loosing his grip on Matt. He couldn\'t quite reach, so Matt rose and fetched it for him. Mello waited until Matt had settled down again, before continuing. "I should have stuck with him, though I\'m not sure if Don Juan was any less dangerous than Don Ross." He laughed without mirth to himself. "Nevertheless, Andrew was an education in himself and he liked me. I\'d sit for hours debating theology with him."



Matt frowned. "You have never mentioned him before."



"I haven\'t mentioned a lot of things before." Mello unwrapped his chocolate bar with his teeth and took a bite. "Andrew told me about the flyers. He acquired \'The Active Side of Infinity\' and made me read it. The flyers are demonic and they\'re always with us. They feed on our \'glowing coat of awareness\'. They are predatory and vampiric. They created our minds, with all our fear and doubt and belief systems, then feed off the flares of hyper-awareness that that creates. We are farmed like chickens in a coop for all of our emotions. That\'s what the flyers are."



Matt was focused on his game. "And that\'s your great theory?"



"It\'s an entity that fits the bill. There\'s something here stimulating fear. Never underestimate hunger as a motive for anything."



"And when this Andrew had finished scaring the crap out of you, did he succeed in getting you to fuck him?"



Mello blinked. "No." He peered down at Matt. "No. He wasn\'t trying that. He really, really was passionate about Carlos Castañeda." He waited. "Why? Have you got a better theory?" He watched Matt shake his head. "Well, then. For the record, I think there is more than one phenomenon here, as I\'ve already said. But I think that the flyer is one of them."



"So it\'s a Dementor." Century clarified.



"A what?"



"Harry Potter."



Mello frowned. "I haven\'t read it."



"You should."



Deontic waved Century into silence. "Mello, what is your evidence for thinking that it\'s one of these flyers? In fact, what evidence is there that a flyer exists?"



"It\'s pure conjecture. As I said, it\'s an entity that fits the bill. I have little more than that." Mello stared at the wardrobe nailed to the bottom of the stairs. "It\'s attacking us psychologically, yet has some control over the natural world as well. It seems telepathic even, because how does it know half the shit that it\'s choosing? It can replay sound as if it was recorded. It can move objects."



"Not necessarily." Deontic interupted. "I believe that that was the ghost. I thought it was Maja moving the statue."



"Let\'s break this down into phenomena. Sounds. Something here can pick up sounds that have occurred in or around this house and play them back, so that everyone can hear them. If it was just one person, then that\'s an hallucination. All of us, then it\'s mass hallucination or a sound that is actually there. How can...?"



Century looked up at the laptops, "Is anything picking up the sounds there? If we played back the film, would it, for example, replay that banging that we just all heard?"



Matt nodded. "I\'ve got some audio of the running feet, the howling around the house and the band playing upstairs. It possibly has what we just heard."



"Then it\'s happening in actuality. That\'s not psychiatric in origin."



Mello nippled on a corner of chocolate. "But some sounds are. You heard a gunshot..."



"So did Deontic and yourself."



"Yes. I heard the destruction of Gorskica." Mello bit his lip. "No-one else heard that."



Deontic glanced sympathetically at him. "Yes, but there was also a thunder-storm and you were being scared out of your mind. That could have been an hallucination."



"It was an hallucination." Mello agreed. "Are the sounds in our heads from the same source as those sounds that we all hear? Make that a research item, Dee."



"Ok."



"We can further deduce that the sound caught on the song, \'Banshee\', was in the latter category." Mello pondered it. "Has anyone else anything to say about the audible phenomena?" No-one had. "Visual phenomena then. Matt and I both saw Maja. One of the air personnel also saw her. I also saw a shadow, which may have been Ioan, up on the roof. Anything else?"



Deontic nodded. "I saw something by the river. It matched the description of the Gw... Century, say it."



Century rolled his eyes. "I\'ve told it to you I don\'t know how many times. Gwrach-y-Rhibyn." He surveyed the empty lollipop stick in his hand. "I thought I saw a lot of things out in the woods. But I was scared and running. It was probably hallucination."



Mello swallowed. "And I saw Nathalie."



"What?" Century stared at him.



"If we are agreed that my case is already closed," Mello stated carefully, "then, for the benefit of Century, who wasn\'t there, and in the hope of finding a solution so we can all go home, I think we should fully disclose our stories. Sharing every scrap of evidence with each other. Agreed?" There was a pause as they all considered it, then, one by one, the other three gave their consent.



It took nearly an hour for each of their stories to be told. They were interupted only once by a thud upstairs, which transpired to be the camera in the empty room falling over. None of them investigated, beyond noting its changed position on the feed. As Deontic finished her telling, Mello stretched and stood. "I\'m going to make a hot chocolate. Does anyone want a drink?"



"I\'ll come with you." Deontic started to stand.



"No. You tell Century what happened in the barracks with Flight Lieutenant Lees. Matt will come with me. We\'ll leave the door open."



Deontic sighed, "Oh Mello."



"He needs to know that too." Mello stared fiercely. "But it\'s ok. It can\'t touch me now. Gorskica has broken my heart for the last time." He turned and navigated his way past the table, with Matt stepping across the mattress after him. "Then afterwards, Century can tell us what happened to him at the hospital."



As soon as they were in the kitchen, Mello grabbed Matt and held him. Their kiss began passionately, ending in tenderness. Matt smiled weakly at him. "What\'s up?"



"I\'m sorry that I left you trapped in that hole for so long."



"And I\'m sorry that I didn\'t save you from the civil war." Matt yawned. "Haven\'t we been through this?"



"Yes, but I wanted to reiterate the point." Mello busied himself making hot drinks for them all. "I bought you into this mess."



Matt lit another cigarette. "I know that you called Sidoh and I know that he came. I was listening from the camera feeds. The others just saw a chocolate bar flying from your hand and being eaten by thin air about eight foot off the ground. The rest just looked like you ranting to yourself, which is not unusual." He stared at his husband. "But I know that you called the shinigami. Are you ok?"



"I knew that you knew." Mello looked pensive. A sudden shudder passed through him, but he carried on making the drinks.



"Was it worth it?"



"Yes." Mello turned to lean against the worktop, watching Matt smoking. "I\'m sorry that I said the things that I did to you, to stop you coming in. I didn\'t want you anywhere near a Death God."



"I couldn\'t see it."



"You didn\'t touch his Death Note."



Matt nodded. "It was Sidoh who told you about the flyer?"



"No." Mello glanced at the door. "I\'m better telling you about this when they\'re listening too, else I\'ll only have to repeat myself." He gestured towards the box of groceries. "Will you see if there are any biscuits or anything in there? I\'ve gone really hungry."



"You haven\'t had your tea, that\'s why. You and Dee didn\'t want egg and chips." Matt crossed the room and hunted through. After a little rummaging, he pulled free a cellophane bag from the very bottom and threw it across to Mello. "T-shirts." Mello caught them easily. "Hal didn\'t forget you."



Mello grinned, "Nice one." Between them, they collected together a couple of trays full of drinks and snacks. Mello paused before picking his up. "Mail, for the record, I miss you when we\'re around the others. You go inside yourself and I know that\'s just the way you are, but I miss you." He leaned over and kissed his husband again. "And I know that you\'re not alright. You voluntarily cuddled up to me in there. You must be pretty shaken."



Matt wrinkled up his nose, looking away, "I\'ll be alright."



"Guapo, don\'t bottle things inside, in this place of all places. That\'s like painting a bullseye on your chest. Just saying." Mello smiled reassuringly. "And the house can\'t have you, because you\'re mine, body, soul and mind." He winked. "Te amo."



"Volim te."



Mello nodded. "I know you do." He picked up his tray and carried it through. Century and Deontic were huddled around a laptop. They looked up guiltily as the couple entered the room. Deontic half closed the laptop\'s lid. Mello\'s gaze pierced them both. "Looking up Gorskica in Wikipedia?" They both looked stunned. "It\'s a logical deduction."



Deontic exhaled, "Yes, we were. I\'m so sorry. I had no idea that the Yugoslav Wars were so vicious."



"It was attempted genocide." Mello replied coldly. "Did you expect fluffy bunnies and...?"



"No, I didn\'t, but I didn\'t anticipate quite that level of cruelty." She surveyed him keenly. "Not something that you would want a small child to witness. Lessons like that, so young...



"Deontic." Mello glared, hissing out, "Do not even try to work out my psychology from this. Drop it."



"Can I just say then that I feel like I understand you a little bet...?"



"No, you can\'t." Mello placed his tray on the floor. "Century, what happened to you in the hospital?" He resumed his seat with an air of finality that told them all that further discussion of Yugoslavia was firmly over. "Were you followed?"



Century shifted position, returning to his original place, as Matt sat down beside him. Century looked reflective, "I\'m not sure what was real. I was on a drip and had an oxygen mask. I was unconscious for much of it. But you\'re not asking about the medical, just the supernatural?"



"And emotive."



"Yes, I felt watched. I felt as though something was standing next to my bed." Century chewed on his lip. "I kept opening my eyes, but there was nothing there. Then I could hear the beating of wings outside the window. It shit me up. I got to worrying about it all and feeling like something was going to attack me." He stared dead ahead. "Bear in mind that this was in the early hours of the morning. All kinds of crap in your head then, is it? One time, I started chanting to Elen again and that helped. I actually dozed off then."



Deontic interupted, "That\'s significant. Carry on."



He glanced at her. "I\'m not religious, but the feeling I got was that..." He frowned. "It\'s hard to explain."



Mello was staring unblinkingly, with a square of chocolate static between his lips, "Try."



"It felt like it wasn\'t just after my life. It was after something bigger. Like death would only be the beginning of the torture; that it had something in store for afterwards. Bear in mind that I don\'t even believe in an afterlife." Century looked ashamed. "I spent about an hour just lying there debating what to do. Mello, I swear that if you\'d walked in then and started evangelising, you could probably have converted me to Catholicism."



"I\'m not an evangelist." Mello replied over the chocolate.



"I know, but it might have worked. I\'d nearly convinced myself that we do go on and that I really didn\'t want to die at that moment in time, because it would get me." Century wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and started hunting through his pockets for a lollipop. "I finally rationalised that I needed protection. I needed to find a god that would save me and I needed to die in his or her protection, because left without it, something terrible would happen to me." He found a lollipop. It was the one that Mello had given him in Machynlleth. He stared at it, but there was none other on him. "That\'s when I worked it out, see? That\'s why those people were all going to religious places. They had felt like that too. But I knew how that story ended and so I left the hospital and came here."



Mello finally chewed and swallowed the chocolate in his mouth. He growled, "Whereupon you totally failed to tell us this information."



"You were under the misapprehension that we were working together on the case."



"And you made it so that I had no option left but to make a \'phone call." Mello glared. Century bowed his head. "So now we know how the Aethists react. They find God." He pulled Matt into his arms, glowering over his head at the teenager. "And Century, right now, for all of our sakes, we\'re working together on the case. Ok?"



"Ok."