Chapter 4 - Crosses

The words of his granddaughter shot around his mind as he fixed his gaze on a spot in the distance.  "Did daddy like the castle?"

"Aye...he loved the castle..." He said to no-one.  "When he was a bairn, and after the asylum shut down, he loved it.  Every day, he begged to go.  When he was 12, his mates all started playing there too.  When he was 15, I caught him drinking there.  When he was 17, he brought his first girlfriend there. When he was 20, he proposed to Stella there.  When he was 22, he went out with his mates from primary...and none of them made it home.

Maybe it was my fault.  Maybe if I'd chosen...a safer place, maybe they wouldn't have disappeared."
A thought struck him like lightning.  The man that hid from him whenever he looked...that couldn't be his son...could it?
No, of course not.  They found the body months ago.

"Oh...An-Andrew..."  He mumbled, putting his head in his hands.  Just 24 years old when they found him, left in only his underwear, in the Moors near the house, with his entire body covered in markings drawn with his own blood.

The police couldn't explain what the markings meant, although they could offer a guess at the murderer.  They caught a group of 10 all in black gowns on camera.  They laid him down on the grass, shut his eyes, stabbed him in the chest, and drew on him with his blood.
The police then explained that this 'ritual' happened once a year, and has done for 10 years now.  They don't know what 'tribe' carries out the process, but they are deeply religious, leaving cross marks on the eyes of their victims and placing the hands together on the chest as if they were praying.  

The thought of his son, stripped and bleeding aged just 24...it made his heart ache.  Without even realizing, he rose from his armchair and picked up his keys.

Ten minutes later, he returned to Hay Hill, with a throbbing pain in his chest.

"Hello?"  He spluttered, searching the ruins for something...anything to symbolize the ritual in some way.  Maybe a matching marking from the body...maybe his blood, maybe his clothes, maybe something...

Suddenly, the ground flew towards him, hitting him in the chest.

His heart ached violently, with pain spreading from his chest down his arm and across his back.

With a shaky gasp for air, he looked up to the man in black, standing front of him.

"H...Hel...p...m-me..."  He stuttered, gasping for air.  The man shook his head.  "P...pl...ea...se..."  The man knelt down by his side, and turned him on his back.  He drew back his long hood.

"Y...you..."  He coughed.

The stitched up man nodded and closed his eyes, cutting his arm with a sharpened rock and drawing the crosses on the dying man's eyes.

Author's Note

I'd like to point out that this is NOT the end. Not even close. The next chapter will be picked up by Katie 30 years later, so stay tuned :)