11)
His childhood home stood before him, resolute against the coming darkness; seemingly a place of refuge. Overgrown with ivy and brambles, its bricks were chipped and crumbling and the twisted skeletal window frames acted as empty eyes to a bereft shell.
A huge wizened and gnarled yew tree grew straight through the centre of the house; Gothic and bizarre against the coming dusk. A tap root arced through, what had been, the front bay window, stretching as if it were waking from the deepest sleep; another branch extending serpentine through the side wall. There was no roof; just the convolving trunks of the yew leading to its magnificent canopy, which consumed the rafters like a bizarre, infectious growth.
Despite the disarray, the wrack and ruin of the place, he still recognised his home, and after everything that had happened to him, to be able to identify something, anything, gave him a sense of safety. He had sanctuary now. Somewhere he could wait out the night and the inhospitable darkness. Alex didn’t question what his home was doing there or why it was in such a state of disrepair. All he knew was he wanted to find somewhere to sleep.
As he got closer he realised just how overgrown the house was. Brambles as thick as his thumb tangled round themselves, barbed hooks ready to ensnare any who dared venture near; the tendriled ivy blanketed and climbed where the brambles had not conquered. How had he recognised it?
There was a vague opening through the brambles which, he guessed had been where the front door originally was. Had he been more alert Alex might have wondered why there was an opening there at all...
However, as he was physically exhausted and emotionally drained he thought about nothing more than rest, and crouching he entered. As he did so he felt a mercurial shiver traverse his spine. There was something that felt wrong: was this really his home? That was ridiculous though; this must be his old house. He only had to look around to be certain of that, and as his eyes became adjusted to the gloom he started seeing things as they had been; there was still enough of a structure to piece together where the rooms once were.
Standing in the remains of the hallway he could just make out where the kitchen and dining room were; to his left lay the lounge and in front of him, where the yew tree was now, the stairs. He had no doubt now that this was his old home and pushed all thoughts to the contrary aside.
However, there the resemblance ended. It was just a fractured shell - no carpets, no wallpaper; just the occasional rotted floorboard, showing the yew’s contorted root system underneath. What little was left of the plastered walls were pockmarked and streaked green with algae and moss. The air smelled damp but strangely comforting.
The bulk of the yew tree stood where the staircase was, its branches stretching out into the other rooms upstairs. There was very little left to the internal structure at all, and Alex wondered how the house was still standing. There was virtually nothing of the upper floor -no floorboards, or ceiling and, with no staircase the upstairs was inaccessible, save climbing the tree and that didn’t appeal to him at all, besides it was too dark to climb. With no way for him to get into his old bedroom he had to look for somewhere else to sleep.
Feeling around in the cloying dusk Alex realised that the yew tree was hollow enough to allow him to curl up inside. He didn’t know where the Deluge was, or even if it was still tracking him down; he didn’t care. He felt protected in this womb; the soft, fibrous heartwood offered him shelter from the elements and it also felt warm against the chill of the night.
As he relaxed he could feel his weighted eyelids slide shut and as the tide of sleep turned and washed over him he briefly wondered where he would wake up next time.
12)
Morning. A warm, comfortable feeling of contentment soothed Alex as he stirred in the first dawnings of wakefulness. Relaxed, he shifted position; he was wrapped snugly in a duvet.. In a bed! Reticent to shatter his hopes of this being real he took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes. The sight that welcomed him was beyond relief.
He was in his own bed; in the house he grew up in as a child, it was exactly the same as he remembered it. He automatically reached for his glasses and they were where he expected them to be; on the small dresser by his bed. Calmed by the sense of familiarity he looked around.
The walls were festooned with posters: brightly coloured and action packed. Shelves crammed with books; cd’s and video’s. Lining these shelves were an array of four inch poseable action figures. On the wall opposite him an old word processor stood on the desk gathering dust.
Glancing at the action figures again, one captivated his interest. Unlike the others, it wasn’t particularly heroic or otherworldly. It was of a shabbily dressed man in a long trench coat and dirty jeans, an unkempt beard and antlers growing out of his head. It looked so odd amongst the rest of the figures that Alex couldn’t think why it was there, but he was intrigued enough that he forsook the comforts of his duvet, and got out of bed.
A sharp pain stabbed in his right temple, it was so intense he cried out and clutched at his head with both hands, sitting down quickly before he fell.
At that moment there was a stern knock on the door. Transfixed, he waited, the toy forgotten. The pain made it hard for him to focus on anything. Another knock on the door, more urgent this time and a voice accompanied it: “Alex?” it called, “Are you alright?” It was a voice he recognised.
Relieved, he pushed himself slowly off the bed, making his way carefully to the door. Taking his dressing gown from the back of the chair, he opened the door to see his father facing him.
13)
For a split second his vision blurred. Where there should have been a landing staircase and far wall, stood a gnarled, misshapen yew tree; snaking branches like sinister outstretched arms. Behind the yew tree was thick forest. Looking up, it wasn’t his father that glared at him now. It was something monstrous, corpulent and leering; a creature from the darkest fairy tales of his youth. Alex reeled in shock, staggered across the room and fell on to his bed.
“Are you alright, Son?” the father-thing asked. Cradling his head in his hands, Alex barely heard him, his head was pounding now, he didn’t want to look up for fear of what he would see. His sanity was already on a knife edge.
“Alex, what’s wrong?” the voice asked again, more sternly this time.
“Migraine,” He whimpered, the pain making it difficult for him to talk. “It started when I got up.”
“That’s why you cried out then.” Alex nodded pitifully. “Mum heard it. She’s worried about you, son. We both are.” Alex didn’t know whether there was ‘parental concern’ in his father’s voice or disapproval.
“I’m sorry.” He heard himself say, an automatic apology in a voice that he didn’t quite recognise. He looked up again and of the yew tree and the creature there was no sign.
“That’s alright. Mum just wants to know whether you’re coming down to breakfast.” The banality of the conversation was absurd and made it more difficult for Alex to concentrate. Still standing by the door, his father was oblivious to the pain Alex was in, “If so, she’ll get your cereal ready for you and put the kettle on. Do you want coffee?”
Alex wanted to scream at the unreality of it all but with an effort he finally said, “…Coffee will be fine… I’ll be down after my wash.”
“Ok, I’ll let her know. Take it easy son and see you in a bit.” With that his father turned and walked downstairs. When Alex was sure he was gone, he carefully shut the door and within a minute his headache started to abate.
He then remembered why he had originally left the bed: the antlered action-figure. He scoured the shelves, looking at each individual toy in turn and soon realised that the horned man wasn’t there at all.
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