Blasted Hill

One of the slopes within the gentle uplands of Witherington was different from the others.

Very different.

Brown, barren and bare, no tree grew; no grass offered itself to the flocks of sheep let loose to graze on its more verdant neighbours. So they didn’t bother paying it a visit. In fact, no animal—human or otherwise—ever cared to go near. Except for the odd tourist, of course. Those who didn’t know better. Those who ended up in A&E with broken legs and twisted ankles or inexplicable rashes.

Eventually, a fence had to be erected around the Hill, though it could easily be breached by the more determined; the ones who saw warning signs as invitations.

Nell chuckled. The council must have actually paid someone to come out and change the number after each incident had been reported! She supposed there were lots more that weren’t. Didn't they realise the sign only made the place more of a magnet? There’d always be a good handful of tourists peering at the fence as she made her way to and from work.

Now, for some reason she couldn't fathom, she was doing the same.

She hadn't intended to go. Had instead arranged to meet up with Marjory at the Food for Thought café in Flammark, though she could say goodbye to that idea. Her phone told her she was already twenty minutes late. It would take another half hour to get there. It told her something else too. No signal. So, she couldn't ring poor, stupid Marjory. Of course, her friend would think she’d been stood-up—which, in a way, she had. But not through any fault on Nell's part. Some impulse told her she just had to visit the Hill. Had to. No question.

She’d always been curious about it and once asked her mum how it had come to be so, well … blasted. So ugly. Why did nothing grow on it?

Her mother hadn't wanted to talk about it. But after some nagging, Nell did manage to get something near an answer. “Don’t go there, dear. Don’t ever go there. The town needs the Hill, but it wants to be left alone. Wants only those it calls. And they never come back.”

Nell curled the corner of her lip. So, so typical of her mother. Full of doomy pronouncements born of the cod-mythology believed-in by local folk. Credulous morons, the lot of them. Her mum believed in all of it: earth mysteries, tree wisdom—King fucking Arthur! Did anyone more deserve having their mouth shutting than she?

It hadn’t taken much. All Nell had to do was swap some of her mum's digoxin pills for aspirin. Just enough over time to give her a lethal underdose. Wasn’t difficult to find a rough match to the tablets—not that her mother would have checked. After she’d taken that tumble down the stairs, the fool wasn’t up to much; it's why she ate that undercooked chicken for Christmas dinner and a few months later left on an unlit gas ring. Easily liable to confuse her medication, the coroner had declared.

Idiot.

Chuckling to herself, Nell turned away from the fence and took a step towards the car. But she didn't take another one. Instead, she felt herself twisting back, once again facing the Hill's bleak escarpment.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a hole in the barrier, just next to the sign. As if someone had gone at the mesh with a wire cutter. How stupid was that?! If the council thought fit to warn people away, you’d think they’d pay some attention to the state of the fucking fence!

Shaking her head in contempt, lip twisting once more, she turned again to head off for the second time. Or at least she tried to turn.

She couldn’t move. Her entire body had frozen and not a muscle twitched no matter how much she concentrated.

Nell frowned, more in puzzlement than alarm. She felt alright. No numbness or anything like that. So why couldn't she move? The hole in the fence gaped at her, its lacerated edges swaying in the wind. Nell literally couldn't take her eyes off it. She felt her heart race as she tried in vain to get her body to respond. A rarity. She never got flustered or upset at anything. Not ever.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Then, quite suddenly, she found herself able to take a step forward. Then another. Towards the Hill. Though not through her own volition. She fought against every lift of her foot, every stride; strides that were slowly taking her nearer to the break in the fence.

For once, there seemed to be no tourists. Though she couldn't turn around, or even glance about, she sensed nobody nearby. Fucking nobody! Nevertheless, though it seemed a pathetically useless Marjory kind of thing to do, she tried to open her mouth to cry for help, but she couldn’t do that either. The only muscles in play were in her legs, and they were taking her the wrong way!

And now they'd got her through the hole and were starting her up the Hill...

She balked at the steepness of the incline. No more than a dozen yards up, Nell already felt the pull in the back of her legs. Unable to slow down or rest, slipping in places over the black barren earth—more dust than soil—by halfway her calf muscles were on fire. Her ankles throbbed too, having sprained over stones and depressions she couldn't see coming, forced to look only straight ahead and not at her feet. Yearning to crawl—to stop—no respite was offered by the force that compelled her.

What the hell? Had she been capable of feeling despair she might have panicked; might have turned hysterical or at the very least squeezed out a tear. But not Nell. Despite her pain, incandescent fury accompanied each stride as she trudged ever onwards, resisting every damned inch.

What the fuck was going on?!!

She hadn’t expected an answer, but one came.

In the wind.

It gusted and eddied and swirled about her head, whistling and whispering, pushing words that susurrated like sighs in her ears. 

I hhhave called you. You are mine…

Nell felt the urge to shake her head, rid her ears of the weird sensation. This wasn't happening. She needed to stop. Listen. Make sure she wasn't going mad. But the only movement allowed her was pressed into the service of the climb. Once more, giving it all her effort, she tried to end her upward march but it was useless. The ascent continued. And now she was being plagued with fucking voices!

Hear me, Nell. Hhhear me…

'Okay,' Nell replied, also in her head. 'I'll play. Who are you? Where are you? How are you doing this?'

Hhhill…

'The Hill? What the fuck?'

Hhhave called you. It is time you ended...

‘Ended? Ended what?’

 Just ended, Nell. The town wants you stopped...

She gave a moment's thought before replying, 'What do you mean, stopped? What have I done?'

Hhhow could you have killed all those animals? Then your schoolfriend. Hhhow old were you, Nell? Ten? You killed your father then you killed your mother. Soon there will be Marjory…

Nell wanted to argue—oh, so wanted to argue—but agony and exhaustion were biting hard as still she toiled relentlessly upwards. Would pleading work? 

'Let me go. Please let me go. I don’t know what this is. My legs … I can’t bear the pain and I’m so tired I can hardly breathe.'

I will take your breath. I will absorb your evil…

'No. Fucking … no! This is a dream. An hallucination. It must be! People will come looking for me. I'll be missed.'

Hhhh. No one misses monsters…

'Let me go. Let me fucking go!'

But the breeze had fallen silent, giving way to the gasps and groans and strangled exclamations of the raging woman, incapable of fear, of understanding, able only to march-march-march ever onwards to the peak of the Hill.

Only when she reached it did the Hill release her from its thrall, and she collapsed into an hysterical, furious, throbbing heap. Too busy ranting to notice, she'd fallen next to the tiniest patch of grass, its incipient blades barely rising from the surface of the blasted earth.

Even in extremis Nell's fury didn't wane, though her blisters bled and her legs swelled. Agonised, she raved and screamed and lifted her chin to the heavens, at last free to open her mouth to spew a frenzied howl of unadulterated rage.

But before the sound could leave her body, the Hill took in its own breath and sucked the shriek out of her; brought it into itself together with every particle of oxygen left in her lungs. Then it pulled out those, too.

And ripped out her heart.

The Hill took a moment to weep for the little patch of grass, so tenderly nurtured and now withered.

Then it mended the fence.