There are some places commonly associated with superstition that even rational people just don’t want to be on particular days of the year. I mean, just think about it. Stonehenge, at dawn, on midsummer’s day is a case in point. You can’t see the monument for the hordes of new age Hippies and would-be Druids and TV camera crews and security guards, who grudgingly accept the presence of (mostly) human beings clambering all over their charge, as the sun, invisible behind the traditional banks of English summer cloud, lines up, but fails to shine between the carefully positioned rocks. Meanwhile, all the loonies bang their tambourines, blow horns, wave ribbons and recite spurious prayers to forgotten gods as they dance in the early morning drizzle.
Definitely to be avoided, trust me. You’re much better off catching some zeds instead.
Then, of course, there are those places that, at times, live and breathe superstition, which, whether you believe in it or not, still believes in itself. Belief is a powerful thing, far more powerful than disbelief. Belief is like faith, and faith, as they say, can move mountains. After all, what Jedi ever fished his spaceship out of a swamp when he didn’t believe he could, eh?
No. There are some places which are just bad news, like anywhere called Springwood, Haddonfield or Sleepy Hollow. Definitely not locales you want to be in on Halloween, or Friday the 13th, particularly if you’re a promiscuous teenager. But there’s a problem here, isn’t there: is midnight on Friday the 13th the one that comes after 23:59 on Thursday the 12th or is it the one that comes after 23:59 on the 13th? I mean, technically that would be Saturday 14th wouldn’t it? It’s probably better to avoid all those extra dodgy places from Thursday night through to Saturday morning, just to be on the safe side.
Of course, sometimes the fates conspire against you and you have no choice. You just find yourself in some innocuous little village like Ripperton at what can only be considered an inauspicious moment. When this happens I guess you can only trust to luck, and try to live, with or through it…
******
Even though it was a Thursday, it was still one of those narrative clichés, a dark and stormy night, and the rain was hitting the windscreen so fiercely that the wipers just couldn’t cope. Everything within reach of the probing headlamps was a watery blur and the road markings were lost in reflected glare. Out here, in the countryside, there was no street lighting, and to either side of the road, the verges were little more than fuzzy grey shadows, giving no hint of the treacherous ditches that lurked at their edges. Only the occasional shelter of a wooded hedge provided a temporary respite from the deluge, when the drumming on the glass and roof, which sounded as though the vehicle was ploughing its way through a fall of led shot, would suddenly decrease in volume, allowing Weyland to be momentarily entertained by a snatch of Turandot bellowing at full volume from the speakers. Irritatingly, the monotonous clunking of the wipers beat out of time with the music. It didn’t seem to bother his brother, who slept soundly in the passenger seat. Gil could sleep though just about anything.
For the moment though, there were no trees or high hedges, nothing to give even a suggestion of shelter from the weather; just the apparently endless road, awash with muddy runoff. Weyland had been driving for hours and the constant effort of peering into the watery darkness was taking its toll on his concentration. He missed the sign which proclaimed the name of the village he was approaching because it was hanging at an odd angle from its broken posts, and he failed to see the sudden bend in the road that, even at the reduced speed he was travelling, caused him to swerve suddenly and skid off the slick tarmac into the ditch. The car lurched sickeningly and came to an abrupt halt, nose down, so the seatbelt dug painfully into his shoulder. It restrained his torso but allowed his head to whip forward sharply. He just knew he was going to feel it later, a more intimate pain in the neck than the one he had to deal with right now.
“****,” he said, thumping the steering wheel with the edge of his fists, adding, “****, ****, ****, ****, ****ity-****!” before turning off the ignition.
Emanating from the front of the car there was a suggestion of vapour which was whipped away by the wind almost as soon as it emerged. There was probably something stuck in the radiator. He toyed with the idea of saying **** again. It wasn’t really necessary and wouldn’t make any difference, but he decided to say it anyway because it made him feel better.
“****!”
“Wassat?” asked Gil, as he surfaced from dream into reality, “We there yet?” He yawned, rubbed his eyes and peered at his watch. The hands indicated that it was 9:23 and the date counter was displaying a 12.
“We’re somewhere, right enough.”
“Somewhere nice?”
“Not really. We’re in a ditch.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t.”
“Bummer! Still raining, I see.”
“Just a bit.”
“Any idea where we are?”
“Other than the middle of nowhere: no, I haven’t a clue.
Gil twisted in his seat and peered out through each of the windows in turn. With the headlights off he hoped to be able to see if there was a tell-tale glow anywhere that might betray the presence of civilization. There was nothing visible behind, but as he ducked down and looked through the driver’s side window he thought he could make out a slight sodium tint in the haze of rain in the sky.
“That looks promising,” he said, pointing.
Weyland looked, estimating it was about a mile away, but it was difficult to tell through the rain. There seemed to be something between them and the light, a rise or a patch of woodland, perhaps.
“What do you reckon?” he asked.
“We’ll get wet.”
“Very wet, I’d say.”
“I’d say you were right.”
“So we’re both right. Question is, do we want to get wet?
“Well obviously we don’t want to get wet. However, the alternative is to remain here. We may stay dry but we’ll be cold and we’ll get hungry, and we don’t know when it’s going to stop raining. It might rain for ever.”
“If it rains for ever we’ll get wet anyway because the car won’t float indefinitely. We’d need to build an ark. If you try to build an ark in the rain, you’ll get wet.”
“True, but you won’t drown, at least not if you finish it before the water reaches over your head.”
“A valid point. However, seeking shelter in a village or town would seem to be a pointless solution if it’s going to rain for ever, unless, of course, the village is well supplied with ark making materials and the necessary tools, which the car is not.”
“An additional point in favour of seeking shelter in a village or town would be that it will almost certainly be able to supply food, regardless of its ability to provide tools and ark-making material. Alcohol is also likely to be discovered there. In fact, to hell with all the rest, let’s go get a drink!”
“Now that, Gil, is an argument. I say, we walk.”
“Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously. Hang on while I get me coat out of the back. Do you want your sample case?”
“Hell yes. I’m not leaving it here.”
Weyland opened the car door and was immediately lashed by cold water propelled by an unrelenting wind which snatched the door from his grasp and snapped it forward against the stops. As his right leg emerged from the vehicle its foot sought purchase on terra firma, only to sink to a depth of about four inches in soft cloying mud. Grabbing the vehicle for support, he hauled himself out and blindly probed behind him with his left foot, which managed to find a firmer piece of ground. Pushing vigorously against the car he stepped backwards. His shoe remained firmly embedded in the muddy embrace of the verge. Consequently, it was a somewhat inadequately protected foot which descended into the very chilly stream of water running off the road.
He swore again, then bent over and battled to manually extract the errant item of city footwear from the clutches of the countryside. After some wiggling he succeeded, then he straightened up to be confronted by the grinning countenance of his brother.
“Having fun?”
“Not really,” replied Weyland, as he wiped the more stubbornly adhering portions of the verge from his shoe in wet grass before giving it a final rinse in the runoff. “Here, hold this a mo.”
He handed the shoe to Gil, then pulled off his sock and wrung it out before putting his foot back inside.
“Hardly seems worth the effort,” said Gil, eyeing the road. “Here, stop messing about and put this back on.”
“Thanks.”
Gil also proffered Weyland’s coat. “I doubt if it’ll do much to keep the rain out but at least it’s another layer against the wind. I’ll get your sample case and our overnight bags out of the boot.”
Weyland struggled into the wildly flapping wind-whipped garment, then slammed the car door shut.
They’d barely been walking for five minutes when the blackness was split by a searing lance of actinic light which left greenish red echoes dancing on their retinas. A second later a rumble of thunder tried to deafen them.
“That’s all we need,” Weyland complained. “Rather close too. I hope civilization doesn’t prove to be too far off.”
Peering ahead into the night it was impossible to tell. There was no hint of the friendly glow they’d seen earlier because the lightning had struck an electricity substation just beyond the village, plunging it into darkness.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out and that’s to keep walking,” replied Gil, just as another heavenly spear smote a lonely tree in the middle of a nearby field, shattering it and igniting the debris.
Weyland paused for a moment, just long enough to glare up into the inky sky and shout, “Oi! Watch your aim, you careless bastard!” before resuming his sodden trudge up the road.
“I think if he’d wanted to hit you, he would have,” said Gil, keeping in step. Stop whining. Wassamatter, you want to live for ever or summit?”
“Well, I am a god,” came the petulant reply.
“True, but you’re not a very well-known one these days. Only a handful of superstitious peasants and the odd scholar remember you. You’re almost forgotten; makes you kind of vulnerable, that.”
“They’re not much better off,” said Weyland, flicking a nod towards the heavens.
“At least some of ‘em have days of the week named after ‘em. And then there’re all those comic books and movies. That kind of stuff keeps ideas alive and memory fresh. What have you got? One poem that only a Viking can read and a passing mention in Beowulf.”
“**** ‘em,” muttered Weyland, and was immediately rewarded with a rumble of thunder which sounded distinctly ominous.
“I think he heard you,” chuckled Gil. “You’d better just shut up and keep walking. It can’t be that much farther.”
Indeed, this proved to be the case. As they’d been talking they’d followed a bend in the road, which, as Weyland had surmised, rounded the base of a slight rise capped with scrubby trees. Before them, a low cottage loomed out of the gloom as a dripping shadow, and they found that a pavement had been laid to the side of the road. There was some evidence of street lighting, which, had it been working, would have seemed rather more welcoming than the blank facades of shadowy, unlit thatched dwellings which were dotted along, what appeared to be, the only street in this isolated rural hamlet. Before the ravages of a certain Dutch beetle it had been bordered by Elms.
The cottages they passed showed absolutely no signs of habitation, but from a few yards down the road they detected the tell-tale squeak of an inn sign which was swinging in time with the fiercer gusts of wind. In the rain lashed night, the pole supporting the elevated swinging board coalesced out of the darkness as a slick, black shadow, making reading the establishment’s name impossible. Some twenty yards back from the road a dim flicker of yellowish light from the windows suggested that this building, at least, held occupants, together with the promise of shelter and refreshment. Still battling the lashing elements they steered towards the entrance.
As they drew near it became possible to discern the occasional roar of harsh laughter above a background buzz of conversation. There was even the suggestion of music coming from somewhere. It all sounded rather jolly. Gil, who was only carrying one bag and had a spare hand, reached for the doorknob, grasped it firmly and opened the door.
As they entered, all human vocalization ceased, followed almost immediately by a loud click as a heavy paw slapped down hard on the off button of a battery powered ghetto blaster positioned on the bar. There was just time for Weyland to register the sung words, “Welcome to the Ho— ” before a silence heavier than death descended, punctuated only by the cackling of an open wood-burning fire large enough to roast a whole coven of witches. Although its warmth was welcome, the cold hostility of the establishment’s denizens was not. Every eye in the place, and they were not all in pairs, regarded them suspiciously.
“Oi spoi strangers…” rasped a disreputable inhabitant of the bar with a Mummerset accent so thick you’d need a jackhammer to crack it. He lurked in a shadowy corner. There were lots of shadowy corners in this place. The only light was provided by the blazing conflagration in the hearth and a profusion of thick dribbly candles in ancestral sconces, which proclaimed their antiquity with great tapering soot stains up the walls.
“They’m benighted travellers, they be,” declared a bushy-bearded leviathan behind the bar. He had the kind of physique which looked as though it would be more at home clad in shirt of chainmail than the slightly overstretched, beer-stained linen that covered it now, and the meaty hams which passed for hands, gave the impression that the haft of a battle-axe would have been a more fitting filling than the greasy phallic pump-handles standing along the inside of the bar. The piercing insight of his remark was followed by a slow chorus of, ‘Aarrr’s from around the room.
The rural behemoth then addressed the trespassing newcomers directly. “Have an accident?” he asked.
“No thanks, we’ve just had one,” replied Weyland with an irony which passed way over the inquisitor’s head.
“Thought so. You’m all wet,” said the barman with sluggish pride and satisfaction at his skills of observation.
“Aarrr,” chorused the chorus of denizens.
“Just as a matter of interest, You couldn’t tell us where we are, could you?” asked Gil.
“You’m in Ripperton,” piped up an anonymous voice from the shadows, and the pronouncement elicited a further round of, ‘Aarrr’s from the locals.
“Is there a hotel nearby where we can lay up for the night?” asked Welyand.
“Nearest hotel’s 40 mile on, down Glazebury way,” replied the barman. "No need to go that far. We’ve rooms here.”
“Mind if we dry out a bit by your fire?” asked Weyland.
“Can’t say as I’d mind, leastways, not so long as you’m drinkin’,” said the barman. "What’ll it be, gents?”
“Got any mead?”
At the mention of mead the room seemed to erupt with a warm, enthusiastic chorus of, “Aaarrrr!” as if the word had the magical property of instantly transforming cold hostile suspicion into lifelong fellowship. Attempting to make himself heard above the din, Weyland attempted to convey that he would really like a large [strike]horn[/strike], [strike]cup[/strike], glass of the stuff. Oh, and one for his brother, too.
The heroically proportioned Barman cocked a quizzical eyebrow and smiled a rather disconcerting smile as he poured out the liquor from a stoneware jug. He re-stoppered it with the cork and pushed the glasses across the bar where Gil and Weyland gratefully accepted them. “You’m go warm yoursellen by the fire and I’ll tell the girl to make up your rooms. Nice comfy rooms they be. You’ll sleep like the dead, mark my words,” he concluded, grinning his head off.
“Thanks,” said Welyand, turning to head for a seat by the fire.
“Welcome to The Slaughtered Slut,” said their host.
To be continued….
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Originally Posted by Hawkman
Don't want to make Auntie kick too much, she might hurt her leg again. 
