The Legend of Loxley Bottom 5

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, Chapter two, Chapter three and Chapter four.

Chapter five: End.

An animated body with no life force is a strange thing. It will shamble along seemingly forever. But, as we know, nothing can go on forever. Without fuel, a machine, an engine, a human body, will fail. Forget anything that you may have watched or read about those things in your world that are known as zombies -- they need live meat to survive, that is their fuel -- or so we are told in those old stories, sometimes they seem to survive on magic. But there is no magic in this world. And Sophie had no appetite for fresh meat -- if she had, she'd have attacked that slipperman -- but she didn't.

The relentless rain continued its ceaseless descent, as if nature sought to cleanse this most macabre of scenes. Sophie, a mere shell of her former self, devoid of life force, pressed on with an unsettling determination. The landscape, drenched and disorienting, mirrored the internal disarray of her vacant form.

She walked steadily along the banks of that Loxley river, it flowing downstream, her walking towards its source. That rain continued to sile down, the ditches and dykes and sykes filling with fresh water and rushing fast past her legs and feet, disorientating whatever inbuilt tracking mechanisms continued within her.

The water broke the banks of the sykes and the river, but did little to impede her relentless journey.

The water flowed this way and that, the Loxley draining away towards the Dun, but the dykes and sykes being sucked into the hungry mouth of the Damflask. The deluge overflowed the banks of the waterways, creating an environment that confused any remaining tracking mechanisms within her. The Loxley's currents swirled, joining the relentless flow away from the Damflask, a hungry reservoir awaiting its next offering.

The beating rain and the unforgiving murk blasted the body of the vacant form that used to be Sophie Hinchcliffe, driving her into the ground. With no fuel, that walking cadaver eventually failed and slumped, sliding into the mud and was washed in the flood into a syke. She was now near to the Damflask, and her body was sucked into that great body of water.

Her lifeless form, the semblance of existence that lingered within her expunged, collapsed into the mud. The Damflask, a voracious maw, welcomed her lifeless body into its depths. Now no longer moving, her prone form was pulled under the water. It floated on the surface for the briefest of moments, and then sank, dropping to the bottom of that stormy miniature ocean. The nutrients of Sophie Hinchcliffe would't be wasted. The water would break her down and she'd become protein for the feeding of the inhabitants of Hellsborough.

The silt and muck and the bones of a thousand dead fish at the bottom of the Damflask cushioned her naked frame as she sank into the depths. The mud ate into her every crevice. It coated her breasts, it seeped between her tiny cleavage, it entered the holes between her legs, it filled the gaps between her fingers and toes.

The storm persisted, a malevolent symphony of rain and hate, as Sophie's body sank into the reservoir's abyss. The mud and silt, mingling with the bones of countless fish, embraced her form, cushioning her descent. Naked and motionless, she became a part of the aquatic ecosystem. The silt invaded every inch of her, coating her body with the remnants of decay. Her descent into the Damflask became a gruesome ballet, with the water breaking down her remains, converting her into sustenance for the aquatic denizens below.

Sophie Hinchcliffe came to rest in the dark and haunted depths of the Damflask. D'divi protect her.

Above, the storm still raged, an unforgiving onslaught, torrents of water cascading down the hillsides like lava from a volcano -- a flowing miasma of putrid hate.

Slippers nudged about her mud clotted frame; the odd one had a nibble -- already they found nourishment coating her skin. Then a shoal of sticklebacks entered her eye sockets and began to nibble at her brain. The soft tissue sucked away in moments. Then other varieties of slipper began to enter her other orifices, following the paths that the mud and silt had previously laid.

There, these slippers found a veritable banquet. Whilst the gabbleratchets had had Sophie's eyes and mind, whilst they had raped and defiled her, they left so much more for the slippers of the Damflask.

Her internal organs, her heart, her lungs, kidneys and liver, ovaries; the eggs of her unborn children -- all were slowly and softly devoured.

Even the secretions the gabbleratchets left behind.

The slippers fed for hours, when they were finished, Sophie was nothing more than brittle skin encasing filth encrusted bone.

The organic network watched all of this activity, relaying a live stream to the nascenti headquarters which lay beneath the Damflask.

The motion detectors had sensed her body descend to the bottom of the reservoir, this macabre scene had not gone unnoticed.

The organic network, had tracked her long before that. They knew when the gabbleratchets discarded her at Loxley pond. They knew when her body had been violated of all worth. They had tracked her progress along the banks of the Loxley as she shumbled along, every detail had been monitored.

The nascenti, didn't know who she was, but they had been anticipating this opportunity.

The grotesque transformation into nutrient-rich filth beneath the stormy surface of the Damflask triggered a response.

The nascenti. Their moment had arrived.

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

I am also tweeting on a daily basis, and you can follow me here.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)