Ben Bracken: Origins (Ben Bracken Books 1 - 5) Read online

  As soon as he had caught his breath back at the cottage, he had called the police. Hopelessly, they had said, that if the mother is missing also, doesn’t that suggest that the child is out with her? Michael had no answer for that, only to argue blindly that Sharon is no longer active in the family home, let alone in the role of mother, and that the window was uncharacteristically open. The thought had occurred to him that Sharon might indeed have the boy, but, while selfish, she isn’t stupid. She wouldn’t dream of taking the boy without Michael knowing.

  With a gasp, he starts ascending the stone steps of the pub, and slings the doors open. He is greeted by a dark mahogany-clad interior and five or six men, who slowly turn to face the exhausted arrival.

  ‘My son is gone!’ shouts Michael. ‘Someone snatched him from his cot!’

  All the other men fall silent and look at each other, in shock at Michael’s words - except for one. A stranger at the bar, who Michael doesn’t recognize. He is younger than the others, but wears the same concern. He is wearing an old red shirt, black pants and a dark coat. He stands up from his barstool immediately.

  The man walks over to Michael quickly, looking tired and down-trodden, but moving with a strength and alertness. His blue eyes fix on Michael and the urgency in them pins him to the spot.

  ‘Where was he last seen?’ asks Ben Bracken.

  2

  Ben was on the cusp of a deep reverie when the man burst in. He had just bought his 4th pint of Blackstoke Bitter, and was enjoying the familiar musty comfort blanket that only the fourth pint can bring. He has been in Wales for three weeks, keeping his head down and going about a quiet, self-indulgent wallow in seemingly the middle of nowhere. From the events of the last couple of minutes, Ben thought, the middle of nowhere sure has its own problems. And this one is a real nasty one.

  The mention of a child missing is an emotive one to Ben, for many reasons.. So many times during his forced tenure behind enemy lines, he had witnessed first-hand catastrophic cruelty towards children - really young children too. The effect of this on him had always left him light-headed. In darker moments, he clung to this dizziness -it meant that fundamentally he was a good man with a solid moral fibre that was undoubtedly there, no matter how far down he was sometimes forced to bury it.

  Seeing this man panic in that oh-so-familiar way, snapped Ben back to his time in Afghanistan, to an environment and time that prevented him from acting. There was damn well nothing stopping him now. If there was anything he could do to save this child tonight, he would do it. He would not make that same mistake again, and hope to whatever powers that be, that this would somehow make up for all the times behind enemy lines when he was handcuffed to inaction. For Ben, fixing time looms, and he will make every last pressing second count.

  Ben recognizes the man in the loosest sense, in that they've been in the pub at approximately the same time more than once in the last 3 weeks. He approaches him with purpose.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ he asks with authority. The sternness and no-nonsense delivery of his words command a straight answer, which Michael, unsure and confused, is forced to give.

  ‘About 2pm, at home, in his crib,’ Michael offers.

  ‘And the child’s mother?’

  ‘I don’t know. She has a new man in Bangor.’

  ‘Where is your home?’

  ‘Around the side of the lake.’

  ‘At the bottom of the hill below the mountain hospital?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Ben was pleased to hear this. He was familiar with the area.

  ‘Who knows where the child was?’

  ‘No one, as far as I know. Who are you?’

  ‘Call me Ben. I’ll head for the hillside.’ Ben looks at him, and watches momentarily how he is gulping for air. ‘You are to go home and call the police again. Tell them everything.’

  ‘I’m coming with you. We are talking about my son! He needs his father!’ Michael bursts, the panic rising. His desire to be close to his child has never been so fierce and bubbling.

  ‘Your son may need quick decisive action without compromise or question. Given the physical exertion and panic you are experiencing I don’t think you are best placed to offer this. You are going home, and you are to wait there.’

  That tone of authority, with its unwavering spine of firm instruction, simultaneously settles Michael into the idea and lets him know that this really is the best option. There is milage in the idea of going home and manning the land line - Christ knows the encroaching mountains generally put paid to the notion of any consistent phone reception.

  ‘Why the hillside?’ Michael asks.

  ‘A hunch’ Ben responds, and heads for the door. ‘Besides - you snatch a child, you are hardly going to parade through town with him. The hill is the quietest way out of the valley. I’ll do everything I can, and I won’t stop till we get him back. You have my word.’

  And with that, Ben thrusts open the door and stomps out into the night. Before the door can even swing shut on the gawping faces inside the pub, Ben’s footsteps have increased in frequency, and decreased in audibility - wherever he is going, he is sprinting as if his life depends on it.

  3

  As Ben pounds the tarmac around the lake, he really gets a sense of the natural beauty the area has to offer. Rolling hills peppered by dramatic firs, over a glassy expanse of pure lakeside. If it wasn’t for the obviously horrible set of circumstances, it is dusky Welsh-land at its absolute finest. There is a church high on the hill over the glassy mirror of Padarn below, set in deep tree-line. Ben knows roughly where, thanks to what can only be described as his incessant armed forces urges. He can’t help it. So many occasions he’d been caught with his cartographical pants down because he had been supplied poor intel, or, in the earlier days, hadn’t done his own homework. First morning he arrived, he scoped the whole area out.

  When he had first seen the dilapidated church, he had thought it might be the perfect place to set up in if the police came for him, or if he got himself into any scrapes. He wasn’t in any unexpected conflicts yet, but that adrenaline surge hitting his muscles like a hot acid bath usually meant one thing - something is coming. He knows the church is only about 500 yards up the hillside, above the old mountain hospital - which itself, is now shut and merely functions as a tourist hotspot. The light is failing, but he knows his intel is good. He’d make it within the next few moments.

  Ben loves Wales on a deep yet unfathomable level. He has been here many many times in his infancy, with his doting, long-dead grandparents. They always loved him no matter what - much more so than his parents, who, despite his return from the darkest places the earth has to offer, want nothing in the slightest to do with him. All they could see was the dishonourable discharge stamp - and nothing else. The sacrifices he had made were completely lost on them, and they were more worried about the impact on the Bracken family name than anything else. He often wonders whether his grandparents would have followed suit, or whether they would be more forgiving like way back when he was just he kid. He clings to the latter stubbornly.

  As he sprints around the lake, he remembers Manchester, and what had happened. He knows the police are after him, but he gets the idea that they hadn’t looked as hard as they might have... Who knows, thinks Ben - they may be just around the corner with a wagon full of tactical support. All Ben knows is that he is outside of the law, even though his heart, body and soul is committed to the protection of it. To what extent he would be prepared to go to always ends up blurring that line...

  It was different for him though. He had been in combat, and had been in the most high-octane pressure-jacked environments, when the very foundations of who you are become exposed and frayed like naked wires in a sandstorm. And as he spies the church on the crest of the brow above, framed by branches of fir against an ever-deepening azure canvas, the scene looks anything but traumatic. If anything, it looks a bit too normal - like when you visit the real-life location of a horror film
, only to realize that when it is stripped of atmosphere and artistic framing, there’s nothing scary about the place at all. But, Ben thinks, bring Wes Craven up here, and this place would be an iconic a horror venue as any.

  The church is a single story stone effort, with a small spire. It could adorn any village green anywhere in rural Britain - the only difference here being that it is largely boarded up, with odd bits of garbage and old furniture outside. Yet, beyond, somewhere inside, there is unmistakable hint of life. There are no cars outside, but Ben knows that the place is not empty. That instinct is only confirmed by the flickering light poking through the hastily hung boards over the windows. To Ben, that inches the horror feel even further, and he is not glad for it - horror movies were never his bag. Ever. He’s always been calm when faced with a human, factual adversary - something he can see and feel - but the prospect of something different, something unknown, scares him. And when faced with something like now, that is in reality, yet somehow carries a whisper of the unknown... it freaks him out. He imagines pulling focus in his mind, like looking through a lens and twisting focal point to zoom. Get past the muddled surroundings and zoom into the real deal and bring it into sharpness. And today the real deal is a missing child. The thought bursts a prickling clarity through every corner of Ben’s brain.

  As he approaches the church, he slows to more of a crouched walk and finds the nearest corner of the front wall. Silence still pervades, and he pauses to a standstill to listen. He can’t hear a damn thing. Well, the birds around the church are all singing goodnight to each other, but something that gives away a sign of human life? Nothing.

  Ben sneaks along, to the nearest window, and tries to peek through the boards. They are too tightly arranged for him to see through, but higher up, there are a few cracks between the slats which were obviously harder for the joiner to nail in straight. Down in front of the window, on the floor, is an upturned wooden table, like a an extremely basic carved spindly turtle. One of it’s legs is missing, prompting Ben to grab one of the other ones and rip it off like a chicken leg - and now he has a weapon, albeit an extremely primitive one.

  He scolds himself. Has he been too hasty? Is he letting his emotions and the creepiness of the setting get to him? What happens if there’s a knitting meeting going on in there? What if he is wasting time here, while the child-snatcher is making off into the night with the poor lad? Yeah right, he thinks - what maniacs come up to an abandoned church at dusk for a little evening out? He edges past the table, and further long the wall, getting ever closer to the front door. The door is large, wooden and looks so old that a fierce yank might pull it straight off it’s hinges. Ben attempts to test that theory, and throwing caution to the wind, pulls the rusted handle as hard as he can.

  To his surprise, the door offers no resistance at all. In fact, it opens far too easily, suggesting that not only is it still actively used but someone may have actually applied oil to the hinges to keep them in good shape. Creepsville has a janitor, he thinks, as warm light seeps from inside the church and splashes onto his face like Holy Water itself. His eyes take a second to adjust, but as they do, he is shocked to see he can make out a warm, well-kept church with, even more shockingly, a full congregation in there. Each pew has a few people on it, who all appear over 50 or so. And they are silent. Horribly silent. There must be 40 or so of them, and they crane around to peer at him. They all look so relaxed, sedate and quiet. Ben is confused, and can’t for the life of him fathom what they might be doing. It must be bad, he reasons. If not, why do it in an abandoned church at nightfall, he thinks.

  Survival instinct kicks in, and he realizes he needs an upper hand. Stealth hasn’t worked, and his cover is well blown. If he plays to that instinct, the upper hand is theirs, so he feels he must act like the whole things is planned. With that, he hoists the table leg up to rest on his shoulder, and puts a hand on his hip.

  ‘Well, what in the good name of fuck is going on here, then?’ he bellows. His voice echoes around the hall, and it’s belligerence shocks him - he knew he was going to apply a modicum of bravado, but did he really have to crank it all the way up to cocksure lager lout?

  The people remain stoic, still and calm. This unnerves Ben more than most things he’s ever experienced, but since he’s gone all-in, he presses on with a stride down the aisle.

  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was something extremely fishy going on around here’ he taunts, his eyes casting around the room. Exits front and back, windows low enough to dive through if he managed to take a leap off a pew. Pew’s are pretty full, though.

  He paces down the aisle, and comes to a stop. He keeps uncharacteristically fighting off the odd wave of panic as he walks - he has seen something like this once or twice before, when he was in captivity deep behind enemy lines. The Taliban prayers had been insistent and intoxicating, and had utterly consumed the men holding him and pressed them down into this mellowed state. What he learnt from that experience was that, despite how serene the exterior, below boils a fanaticism that is only matched by it’s unwavering commitment. He had been scared then, and he’s scared now. Doesn’t matter how old you are, approximately 40 to 1 is bad odds any hour. He turns as he reaches the altar, and faces the congregation - a mad, table-leg wielding preacher with his silent creepy flock.

  Suddenly another voice breaks the stillness, strong, resonating and female, like the voice you’d perhaps imagine belonging to Big Sister.

  ‘What are your intentions, outsider?’ she bellows.

  4

  There is often in life a moment that defines you - separates all the various components, shines them up bright and clear, then fuses them together in a composite whole. After the epiphany, you are somehow better than before - version 2.0. As Ben whisks around to face the owner of the voice, he can’t help feeling that this could well be one of those moments.

  By the time he has spun 180, and has tried to focus, he realizes he can’t see the source. The voice is still, echoing, a booming vocal blast bouncing off every wall of the church - dominating and oddly painful. As he was rotating, the stained glass windows had created a lurid blurred zoetrope, that, strangely now he is stationary, is now etched on his retinas like rainbow vomit. And for some reason, his eyes can not see past the colored blobs and whirls. He shakes his head, but just can’t rearrange the color into something meaningful. The voice is still booming, but he can’t make out the words. He drops slowly to one knee, to try to regain some composure and his table leg clunks on the floor.

  Ben strains and takes a few deep breaths - long in and long out. Whenever he does this, he can almost feel the oxygen flood the recesses of his brain, and for a mere second, his vision comes back briefly - and he sees a snapshot of a statuesque light-haired woman standing by the altar in a red dress. As soon as his sight has had time to give him something to work with, the edges smudge, the borders blur, and he’s back to wading through a visual miasma.

  Something else has presented itself, which Ben sensed when he saw the woman. The incense ain’t incense. While he had that moment of clarity, he noticed that it was copal. While he was training for the armed forces, he had done some extremely remote time in Central America, learning survival techniques in jungle settings and that’s where he had come across it. Copal was frequently used by some indigenous societies in sweat lodge ceremonies - to aid in purification, and the driving out of demons. What the hell it is doing in North Wales is utterly beyond Ben, but there is something else nasty at play, and it has given itself away with a dark, bitter after-taste to the scent. LSD. Surprisingly, there is also a smaller sweetness on the furthermost tip of his tongue. Marijuana. As Ben’s tries to keep all his facets together, he can’t help his thoughts clouding darkly just as bad as his vision. Just what the fuck is going on here?

  Before he has finished his thought, he feels an awful sharp thud on the back of his head, as if he has been hit with something - he can’t tell what, but he can sure feel it. Warm begins to
pour down the side of his head, onto his cheek, and he binds his eyes shut to beat back the pain and keep from getting what can only be his own blood in his eyes. The dizziness doubles.

  The voice ramps up in intensity, and he can make out the occasional word -

  ‘........purge.........hate...........worth...........pound.........outsider (‘that old chestnut’, Ben thinks).........fear.........price.........’

  Ben didn’t like any of those words, frankly. He still has no idea what is going on, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that if there is a young baby around these nutjobs, burning drugs and talking about a ‘purge’, that can only be a bad thing. If the child is up here, Ben knows he has to get it together. He’s not up on this dank hillside on a jolly.

  Abruptly, Ben sticks his fingers down his throat, triggering his gag reflex. Almost immediately, he throws up - a lot. Blackstoke Bitter drenches the steps at the bottom of the altar, splattering wetly against the stone of the church floor. For Ben, the taste is awful, but he has to get all that vile airborne concoction out of his body as quickly as he can, before he loses control altogether.

  The abrupt retching had cut short the woman’s ranting, but the woman’s voice punctuates the gagging once more, but this time bearing a venomous call to arms.

  ‘Punish this man. Punish him for questioning. Punish him for jeopardizing the purge! He does not want you to reach God - are you going to let him stop you from serving the Almighty?!’

  Ben is both pleased and not pleased. Pleased that he heard every word and his drug-blurred mindset allowed him to arrange the words correctly. However, he is most definitely not pleased at the prospect of being torn limb from limb by some angry senior citizens. From his crouch, he spreads his arms around the floor, trying to find something through his hazy vision with which he can defend himself. His hands rake through his own vomit.