The Legend of Loxley Bottom 3

A new diary entry on hellsborough.com is coming soon:

Also known as "The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe", this is a work in progress based on research that I have undertaken into the recent modern age of the history of Hellsborough under the rule of the nascenti. A local girl and simple shop worker, Sophie Hinchcliffe, who -- inexplicably -- becomes the first CEO of the DPDC -- that is the first Chief Executive Officer (the original boss, if you will) of the Dark Peak District Council, the local government that administers Hellsborough and The Dark Peak for the nascenti overlords.

Sophie is a major character in the forthcoming sequel to "Dark Peak -- Hellsborough Chronicles book one", so it is only right that I do the research to uncover her backstory, most of which I have gleaned from the local library in Hellsborough -- an awesome resource for research, because, as you would expect, those nascenti overlords want the populace here and hereabouts to understand the importance of local characters that have helped to define their rule.

It will be serialised here, as well on on Twitter/X in short form.

Read Chapter one here, and Chapter two here.

Chapter three: Wandering.

Blind. Soul-less. The cadaver that was Sophie wandered, an animated corpse. A zombie in your modern off-world parlance, but such a word doesn't exist on this side of The Hinge.

The supernatural exists in The Dark Peak -- to us humans at least. But the denizens of the hex -- the clowns, the xin, the nascenti, they're not so concerned by what us humans think of as supernatural.

To us humans, the supernatural is a real thing -- gabbleratchets are proof of that. But you'll never tie a clown down on the subject. For instance, they can physically see Shad, Van's barghest that spends so much time by my side. They tolerate him, at least here in Hellsborough -- not so much out in The Dark Peak, as Van attests in Chronicles one -- but they do not fear him like many humans do. It must be something to do with the hivemind -- and the indigenous hivemind at that -- maybe it's just something that psycmasks just cannot ascertain at all.

There are also the murk wraith -- the ghosts of the tormented. Sight of which, like a barghest, with burning eyes the size of saucers, is a sign of impending doom.

The Boggarts and the syncarids, the morivarids and murk dwelling cryptids like the Loxley kraken, the bracken man of Wadsley common, the giant raptor of Worral and the Dun Bog Beast. All are supernatural to us humans. To the denizens, not so much supernatural as naturally super maybe. Anyway, I digress.

The shell that used to be Sophie stumbled aimlessly along the banks of the Loxley river in the direction of the Damflask. "She" had no need for food any more. A dead person -- even when animated, as she was -- has no need for food, the organs no longer function, so there is no need for fuel.

Her psycmask had been ripped from her face by those rabid gabbleratchets as they devoured her oneness, their toxic saliva melting it away like it was nothing. But as with food, she had no need for a psycmask now, the murk could do her no harm.

That viscous saliva though, laced as it was with the rockcrust of generations, animated her corpse and drove her towards water. She knew somehow that the Loxley flowed in the wrong direction to where she needed to get to -- she headed upstream towards the Damflask.

That great source of water dragged her forwards like iron filings drawn towards a magnet -- or an alcoholic towards a full bottle of rhum.

The mud on the banks of the Loxley grabbed at her bare feet and sank between her toes, making her slip and slide. She stumbled over devilish rocks and grasping roots. Bracken and thistles stung and bit at her unclothed flesh. But she felt no pain -- there was no pain any more for Sophie.

The damage to her skin, to her body, went nowhere. The nerve endings didn't register any pain. Her brain had no feeling.

She was spotted by an slipperman, alone on the banks at this time after murkfall. He was dirty from a day on the banks, covered in muck and filth, almost invisible in the murk. He watched with a lecherous glint in his eye as this young woman approached through the murk.

This slipperman, although human, didn’t believe in the supernatural.

All that is reyt daft, he were known to say in the pub when someone raised something out of the ordinary as the subject, tha lot 'as to be crackers to believe in any o'that rubbage.

I doant believe in none of that stuff, tha daft buggers, he would say, before pitching back another pint of ale.

But Jed, what about the skull moon, his friends would say -- Tha ain't supposed to go out when the skull moon is up. D'divi knows, tha is not supposed to go out, tis dangerous and tha is likely to come a cropper.

Just a trick of t'murk. Just tha lot go on believing that, and I'll keep tekin me share of them slippers from the river in the murkneet. I’m not taking any effing smelt from you D'divi worshippin' chuffers. If tha lot is too scared to come out of tha 'ouses at neet, that's tha own business, nowt to do with me.

Me, I'd rather be deed than live in fear like tha lot does.

Sophie was almost on top of him.

Stumbling in the darkness, she pitched forwards landing in his lap. She turned what was left of her face towards his. Gargling half-words that meant nothing, expelled from a brain that no longer functioned, screaming like a murk wraith from a ripped throat that could no longer form human sounds.

Is tha reyt? He stammered. His words caught in his throat, he said no more.

She stared in his direction. Her empty eye sockets and vacant face howling at him.

He dropped her into his slipping tackle and ran for home, not stopping until he was back in doors.

By the time he got back to his home up the hill in Dungworth, he was panting worse than a barker that had been without water for a week.

When his wife came into the kitchen to find out what all the noise about, his terrified eyes made her scream.

Scrabbling back to her feet, Sophie shumbled like an automaton along the Loxley trail. She passed onto the long lane, and beyond -- into the emptiness of the wisewood proper, and followed the scent of the Damflask.

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

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Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)

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