The Keeper

By Martin Bubear

Jake started to sweat, while goose bumps broke on his skin. What had he expected? He was relieved, the old man was nuts, but with that, as if just to prove him wrong, a white glow emanated from the wrinkled fist quickly running up his arm and over the old body. Jake stood transfixed as he watched the light draw closer to his own sweaty hand. He tried to pull away but Jacob had an iron grip, he looked at the old face. One eye, with the orb of Naim, burning red, the other an empty dark glistening socket. Jake wanted to scream but just then the light hit him.
It wasn't pain, more like the jolt of a mild electric shock. His body stiffened and he jumped as the energy invaded his body. The feeling wasn't unpleasant but disturbing as he watched the light travel up his arm and into his chest. Then as it reached his head white fire blinded him making him cry out in surprise just before his head exploded in pain as if a hot bullet was carving its way through the core of his brain. He knew he was screaming, he could hear himself yell, but it was as if he was in a faraway place. A myriad of colours filled his vision, even though his eyes were now tightly shut. His right hand was burning in the grip of his Grandfathers. Fire burning through his skull, he was sweating and shaking and his body twitched as if in a fit. His mind's pain was all consuming and consciousness was slipping away like a spring tide. Just as he was about to pass out he was physically rammed to the floor, the fuel can flung out of his grip, the agony suddenly dead. Gone. This was almost more shocking than when it was actually there. Jake found himself on his hands and knees, eyes still tightly shut, gasping for air and bathed in sweat. It was then he was sick. The hot bile splashing his hands and arms, soaking his shirt as his body convulsed. He gasped trying to swallow back the burning acid, almost suffocating on its intensity. Jake fought to control his breathing and as the feeling slowly passed he sat back on his haunches, wiping his hands on his trousers before rubbing his eyes and looking around him. His Grandfather was sitting in his chair a few feet away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Bubear
• Release date: Sep 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465940988

Martin Bubear

Martin Bubear is a freelance Project Manager and part time writer and author. Based in Bedforshire, England he began writing at a young age and has started to make some of his work available for public consumption. His first work of full fiction, The Keeper, was published for eBooks in 2010 and then in Paperback in 2011. He is now working on a new novel Jerod Class & The Wild Angel aimed at teenagers for publication 2014. Martin has 5 children and has written a number of short stories for them mainly for their amusement but also for his. These can be downloaded for Kindle but will also be available as a compendium on paperback in 2014. He is married to Donna and shares the house with Cameron, Theo, Erin, Ben & Kirsty as well as a number of chickens, fish, ....and Zimba Zoot.......

Book preview

Chapter 1.

Jake had hardly moved in almost five hours. He was looking at and thinking about the small cottage he was parked outside of and contemplating its contents, just as a criminal might case a prospective job. But he wasn't there to burgle, there probably wasn't anything worth stealing anyway, he was there to face the Grandfather he hadn't seen for twenty years. And the more he sat, the more he ached and the more he ached the more knew that he would not start the engine of his Audi until he had met the old man inside. His red rimmed eyes just kept looking at the gravel path he had to negotiate before he would arrive at the front door. His legs were aching, his backside was numb, he had a headache and he was pissed off.

The car was full of tobacco smoke and the persistent drivel on the radio had been switched off hours before. Why did they keep playing the same songs over and over and why did he hate them all? It was a question which often found himself asking whenever he listened to the radio, and one which he secretly hoped may be answered one day. He didn’t know why he bothered to turn the damn thing on, it may have been the vain hope that a station worth listening to would actually make use of the airwaves or more likely that he kept forgetting to put CDs in the car and simply liked the company. Today however he wanted no company, he didn’t even want to be with himself. He felt gutless and sullen as he tried to pluck up enough courage to open the car door, walk the five feet to the gate, open it and then follow another ten feet down the weed filled gravel path to the white front door. Then with one motion rap his knuckles upon it. That is all it would take. It was simple, he had done similar things many times before but this time he felt as if he was preparing to climb a mountain or dive an uncharted ship wreck at the bottom of the ocean. The journey looked immense and the longer he sat the worse it became every foot step stretching longer until the few yards looked like a marathon. And at that particular moment in time he would rather have run a marathon than walk to the grim looking cottage with its sightless windows, its battered roof and cracked walls – the place really was a disaster.

His mind wandered like a bubbling, turbulent dream breaking into a nightmare, running over and over the inevitable chain of events that had brought him to this unsavoury confrontation. The letter he had received from the local solicitor was crumpled and damp in his hand. It was a simple almost clinical note, on standard headed notepaper from a local agent whose offices, he noticed, were in the village high street, above the fish bar. At least his Grandfather hadn’t gone to any expense to find him. It had been addressed to Jake Charles Davies, but had passed through a number of old addresses before finally falling through his front door that morning. The solicitor had been hired to locate Jake before the 1st of May, which he had succeeded in doing. Just. It was now 29th April. It requested (Jake liked that bit, as if he could refuse) that he visit his Grandfather at his house in Farthing, Kent. Simple, to the point, and for an unknown reason it scared him witless. Even though he had been expecting it for years. He knew why he was here, the old man was obviously dying and the family legacy was to be passed on. This honour (he liked that thought too) should have gone to his father, but he had died twenty years earlier, meaning that Jake would have to take on the charge himself, missing a whole generation.

He looked at his right palm, the penny-sized hollow in its centre was itching, it always itched day and night ever since his father exhaled his last whiskey sodden breath. Over the years he had learned to live with the irritation, and some days he never noticed it at all, but on others it was like an insect trying to bore its way into his skin. No amount of scratching would satisfy it and over time he had scratched it enough to leave a permanent network of scars across his palm. This was all part of the legacy, he knew that much. This family mutation had supposedly been passed down to the first born male child ever since time began, or so he had been led to believe by his father. Of course he didn’t believe it, not all of it. The hollow in his hand had filled him with awe as a child but as he grew older he explained it away as a hereditary birth defect and the story as a figment of his father’s drunken mind. This legacy was not a valuable canteen of silver cutlery, it was apparently why his family was on Earth and he had been told this ever since he could understand the spoken word. Jake remembered that every day in whatever sober or drunk state his father was in, he would be told that he was chosen to look after the races and that he must never forget his past. As a kid Jake didn't know what he meant and he was surely none the wiser now. In later years he had forgotten much of his past. His mother had died when he was a baby, leaving his father to bring him up and the older he got the more he became sure that his father’s drunken ramblings were the fairy tale fascination of a pickled brain.

Jake did believe that there was some truth in the story and that his father should have passed on more knowledge but that had abruptly ceased the day he was found dead in his bed by a worried friend while Jake was a school. At the time he had been told that his father had been ill for a long time and had died quietly in his sleep. But Jake had seen the vomit stained bed clothes and smelt the sour tang of half digested whiskey and knew that the more likely cause was that he drowned on the contents of his own stomach. Just like all the Rock stars he read about - ‘Rock Star Dies of Lethal Cocktail of Drink and Drugs!’ was the usual headline.

Now he was about to get a lifetimes worth of knowledge in one day, or afternoon as it was now, whether he liked it or not.

Jake absently scratched his hand.

He had thought initially about ignoring the summons, but that notion was soon crushed. No matter how much he really would have liked to drop it in the bin and gone to work just as he had done for the past years, he couldn't. He knew he was different, he knew that his life was about to change and he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. That simple unalterable fact made him angry and he hated being so totally controlled by another force, especially one he didn't know much about, but he knew enough to know that he didn't want it, not now, not ever.

He scratched his hand.

Another cigarette was burning hotly between his fingers. He didn't remember lighting it. The ashtray had overflowed, he didn't really remember smoking any of them, but the taste in his mouth and the heaviness of his lungs told him that he had. As he started thinking about this he decided that it was now or never, he had to move otherwise his legs would cease to function and he would die of lung cancer sitting in his car. Modern cars were designed for comfort but they still had a long way to go and anyway he wanted a leak. Jake took a deep breath of the warm, stale, smoky air and looked at the cottage once again. He then looked at his pale unshaven image in the rear view mirror and finally with a resounding sigh opened the door.

The fresh air hit him as if it was a punch from a heavyweight boxer. Pins & needles immediately started to burn hotly down both his legs and his feet felt like he was standing on broken glass. He turned to the car and smiled as the smoke fell out of the open car door and drifted away.

‘God I bet I smell like a bon fire’ he smirked to himself ‘and look like a cripple’ as he stood there stupidly waiting for some sense to be made by the oxygen starved nerves in his legs. The pause did however give him chance to gather himself mentally before finally walking away from the safe cocoon of his car.

As he started to walk he suddenly realised that he couldn't even remember what his grandfather looked like, the last time they had met was at the grave of his father. Even then his grandfather paid little attention to him, his Aunt Mary was his guardian and looked after him until he left home and went to college.

His life was about to change and he silently thanked God that he wasn't actually married. But he knew that he would one-day father a son, who would have a dark penny sized hollow in the palm of his right hand, and who would take on the legacy that Jake would pass on. This would happen as long as the earth revolved, or until someone (...him?...) screwed up, although for the past 10 years Jake had kidded himself that it was all a lie. But deep down he knew it was more truth than fiction.

The sun was bright and spring had broken. Winter had been mild again that year; winters were always mild nowadays. His mind wandered back to his childhood winters. Playing in the huge deep snow-drifts that built themselves against the fence of the back garden, on rare occasions his father would help him tunnel in to make a little igloo where it was so warm you could forget it was freezing outside and on those occasions they would huddle together, father and son telling stories and pretending they were holed up in a far away land, it was on these times that his father would regale him with stories of the other worlds and to a young boy they did seem real but even at that age he knew it was not possible, they were however happy childhood memories which had always stayed with him. Here the recent rain had left everything fresh and he hadn't seen a snowflake in years.

Jake ground the cigarette butt into the gravel, scratched his hand and started towards the cottage.

Five steps and the gate creaked open, ten crunchy paces down the gravel path and he was at the front door, all in less than five seconds. The garden was unattended and if he didn't know better he would have sworn that the place was deserted. It was so quiet, this was the house though, he knew that, even if part of him wanted to believe it was the wrong place. He knocked on the old white door, flakes of paint dropping to the floor as he did so, the dark cracked wood rotten and blistered underneath. Jake absently wondered why the old man had let the place fall into such ruin.

He waited.

Nothing happened. Hope surged in his chest, quelling the coppery taste of fear that was filling his mouth. Perhaps this was the wrong house after all? Perhaps his grandfather was already dead? Perhaps...............and during that second of uncertainty the door suddenly opened and at that moment Jake was sure that his full bladder would release itself down his leg.

Chapter 2.

Kerry was marking the forth years essays, they were particularly good this time. It must be her excellent teaching methods. She smiled to herself, perhaps she would ask for a pay rise and then aim for the department head position currently held by Jake Davies. No, she couldn't do that, living with him would be hell then. The door to the classroom opened and Annabelle Crane, a pretty, dark hared 15 year old timidly entered the classroom.

‘Do you know where Mr. Davies is, Miss,’ Annabelle asked, ‘I'm supposed to have a private tutorial this afternoon, but I've been told by Mr. Hodges that he's not in. I wondered if you knew anything?’

Everyone in the school knew that Kerry and Jake were an 'item' (even in her own mind she put quotations around the word item), quite a new 'item' actually. It had initially caused a stir and word travelled fast, especially in a school the size of Trent Middle. Kerry marked the last page of a particularly violent notion of life in 17th Century Britain from a particularly violent little boy called Benjamin. At least his imagination was vivid, thought Kerry, perhaps she would ask his parents if they let him watch much late night T.V.

Kerry looked up into the bright face of a quite expectant Annabelle. ‘Yes, Annabelle, I'm afraid Mr Davies had an unexpected appointment today and all his private tutorials have been cancelled, it is on the notice board outside the staff room.’

‘Yes Miss, I did see it,’ replied Annabelle obviously much more disappointed than she should have been; most kids would love to get out of a private tutorial. But then again this tutor was a very good-looking 30-year-old thought Kerry. ‘Will he be in tomorrow Miss?’

‘Yes, things should be back to normal tomorrow, I'll tell him you were looking for him.’

‘Thanks Miss’ and with a sigh the girl closed the door. Kerry felt a tang of jealousy.

‘I think I might have some competition there,’ she said to herself with a smile. She stood and started to tidy the papers on her desk. Annabelle's questioning did remind her that she didn't really know where Jake was today. An appointment was all that she knew of his mysterious and sudden day off. The first she had heard of it was that morning, just after the mail had arrived. He asked her to tell the Head that he wouldn't be in as he had an appointment he had forgotten. When Kerry questioned him further he had shrugged, finished his black coffee, and said that it was nothing important and was out the door, gone. It was very strange behaviour, even for Jake. He never missed the early morning kiss they had experience every day for the past 6 months and he hadn't looked worried since he asked her if 'she perhaps might like to move in'. But she would find out tonight what was so important, she was sure of that. There was something though, perhaps her female intuition, which didn't feel quite right and as that feeling developed she was suddenly cold with fear and a shiver ran down her spine. She forced the feeling away and told herself that she was just being stupid, a bit paranoid that's all. She had already tried to call home, but he either wasn't in or just ignoring the phone. It could have been either. Jake often ignored the phone and almost always ignored his mobile.

Kerry gathered the marked books and locked them in her desk and then looked at her watch, the first present Jake had bought her. She didn't really like it but she couldn't bear not to wear it. The bright white face announced that it was 5:45. Time to go. She had planned a visit to the shops first before getting home and starting dinner, which still amazed her as she never thought she would be doing the housewife routine. She was much too independent for ‘that sort of rubbish’ was her catch phrase at school, but for Jake she would do anything. At 25 she had found the man of her dreams and she wasn't going to lose him just yet.

****

The old Ford Escort pulled up outside the small two bedroom cottage in Foxfoot, a little village Kerry moved to when she had accepted Jake's invitation to move in. Her own little flat in the centre of Cambridge was now vacant and if things continued to go well she would be putting it on the market soon. She noticed that it was now just after 6:30, the nights were getting lighter and in another couple of weeks, they wouldn't need any lights until it was almost bedtime. Jake wasn't home, no car parked badly by the side of the road and no music blaring out. If he ever got in before her the stereo was always blaring out Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin or some other noise full tilt, he only ever played his CD's when she wasn't there. Which suited her because she hated his taste. Give her a good George Benson or Whitney Houston any day. But the most telltale sign of him not being home was that the gate was shut, Jake never shut the gate, which was another of his little idiosyncrasies that she loved to hate.

She unloaded the shopping from the car and went into the house, struggling to get the key in the lock while juggling the shopping bags. Once inside she headed for the kitchen and started to put the groceries away, there was no point in starting dinner until she knew how long Jake would be. He would call if he was going to be particularly late, he always did, especially when the department Heads had their monthly meeting. But that was usually because they were all in the pub. So she decided to have a shower, remembering first to open the bottle of 'Dao' she had bought to let it breathe. She liked the house; she had immediately found it cosy, even when it was just Jake’s bachelor pad. It was true that men couldn’t look after themselves. Until she had moved in there weren’t even any curtains in the living room windows. The front door opened directly into the lounge with the stairs set against the right hand wall, their open treads giving the illusion that the room was actually bigger than it was. In fact there was just about enough room for a sofa, chair and T.V. She would have liked to have a dining table so she could throw a real dinner party rather than guests having to eat from trays on their laps, but there simply wasn’t space. Perhaps when she had sold her flat they would move somewhere bigger. Somewhere they could bring the family up. Kerry stopped as she finished unpacking a smile breaking her lips. Had she really thought that? Was it already that certain? She had never thought about having children before but now after only six months it was as if that chapter in her life was already written and on the publisher’s desk. And moreover she liked what she was reading.

She headed up the stairs to the main bedroom, which was also the route to the bathroom. That was another problem with the house being so small, any guests staying in the second bedroom needed to walk through their bedroom to go to the bathroom. Not that there was any space in the spare bedroom for people to stay, as it had become a study/junk room which was ninety percent full of Jake’s rubbish. But at least it was all out of the way. After undressing from the sensible skirt and blouse she wore for work she looked in the long mirror, which leaned against the wall, Jake still had to fix it up on the back of the bedroom door as he had promised. Kerry often looked in the mirror, especially recently, just to make sure there weren't any bulges or wrinkles where there shouldn't be. She was tall, 5ft 10' an inch shorter than Jake, but where his hair was a light brown hers was a dark auburn. The setting sun filtered through the bedroom window and shimmered through the long curls that fell on her freckled shoulders. Standing in just her panties, her fair skin milky in the light, flat tummy, long legs and an arse an old boyfriend said he could eat his dinner off (and almost did once), what worries did she have?

‘Pah, Annabelle Crane, no competition,’ Kerry said, her green eyes sparkling. And with that she turned and looked to make sure her bum hadn't grown to extraordinary proportions, slipped out of her panties, which were tossed onto the bed, grabbed a warm fluffy towel from the radiator and headed for the bathroom.

Soon after refreshing herself, she put on a white dressing gown, which she had been meaning to replace as Jake had bought it for her, and it hardly covered her backside, which was sexy but impractical and headed down stairs to make a snack. Jake still hadn't rung, and she was becoming a bit worried, however she was also hungry and she couldn't wait for him any longer. She decided to give him another hour and then send him a text to chase him up – there was more chance him answering a text than a call.

With toast and tea she sat with her legs curled under her on the soft green leather sofa to watch T.V. which soon lulled her to asleep, with head on arms while the T.V.'s flickering grew brighter as the house grew darker, Kerry dreamed of a contented future.

Chapter 3.

‘You've finally decided to come in then?’ said the wrinkled old man in the wheelchair. ‘You've been sitting out there for hours!’ Jacob's voice was old and brittle, this was not the voice or body of a well man. But it still managed to fill Jake with dread. He suddenly knew how his pupils felt when he was telling them off.

‘Yes,’ Jake whispered ‘I'm here.’ The house looked dark and the smell of rotting, damp timber was pungently flowing from the open doorway. Why did the old man sit in a dark rotten house, was he going to end up like this one day?

Jake scratched his palm again, it was now itching furiously.

The wheelchair squeaked on the wooden floor as it was nimbly turned around and driven into what Jake suspected was the living room. He followed, closing the front door behind him, more paint falling off and drifting onto the doorstep as he did so. The house was musty and felt un-lived in, and moreover it was cold.

‘No electricity?’ Jake asked.

‘Oh yes, just turned off, don't need it,’ Jacob said gruffly.

Nice to see you too Grandad, Jake thought, this was even worse than he had expected. ‘Um, I'm sorry but may I use your bathroom before.......’

‘Yes, yes upstairs,’ the old man said, cutting Jake off mid sentence ‘You'll find it’ and then added more impatiently, almost under his breath ‘I've waited this long a few more minutes won't matter.’

Jake turned, the stairs were behind another woodworm holed door almost opposite the front door. The steps were bare, not even a thread of carpet lining them, wallpaper was falling off the walls in great clumps. Jake made sure he didn't touch anything in case the whole structure collapsed. At the top was a small landing with three doors. Through one he could see a large bedroom, with its sole occupier an old steel framed bed with rusty springs and no mattress. To the right was another door. Jake turned the brass handle with a dry creek and it opened into a totally bare dusty second bedroom. Tattered moth eaten curtains hung around the small sash window, and inch of dust lay on the floor, some of it disturbed by his entrance and was now swirling through the shifting shafts of shining light from the setting sun. Nice place thought Jake before closing the door with another creak and opening the next. This led to a bathroom. A stained enamel tub was against one wall, next to a filthy basin and toilet. Jake lifted the lid with one finger, his nose wrinkled in disgust, not quite sure what he was going to find. The bowl was almost black, when once it had been white, rusty coloured water looking back at him. It would do thought Jake, just. He had used worse in France. He unzipped himself and released the flow. The relief was immediate and seemed to take hours, his steady stream cleansing the black mould from the bowl. ‘Perhaps I should bottle and sell this stuff to ICI!’ Jake said with a smirk before wondering where the old man went for relief, as he obviously couldn't make it up the stairs. Jake flushed and more rusty water filled the bowl, he stood and watched it swirl and gurgle before zipping up and heading back to the stairs.

Jake re-entered the living room to find his grandfather by the front window as if contemplating the road outside. Jake could see his white Audi parked a few yards away, and knew that the old man must have been watching him for hours.

‘What about lights?’ Jake said to break the silence and to regain the old man's attention. It was the first of many questions bursting into his mind faster than he could control. This was the grandfather he hadn't seen for twenty years and the old man was in a wheelchair, in a rotting cottage in the middle of Kent! If this wasn't going to kill him then nothing would!

‘I've been blind for 5 years, I don't need lights,’ the old man retorted. Jake was shocked, he hadn't even noticed, the old man gave the impression of a sighted man. Things were getting worse by the second. ‘I'm not going to mess you around Jake, I haven't got the patience or the time for that. You knew this wasn't going to be a friendly family visit, what your father did get to show you before he stupidly killed himself was just the beginning. You don't know the magnitude of what will soon fall on your shoulders, I only hope it's not too late.’ The old man's voice was paper-thin and every rasping word made Jake shiver. ‘But you are of honoured blood,’ he continued, ‘the hollow in your hand shows that.’ Jake looked at his palm, it was red and sore where he had been scratching it. ‘You are strong enough to do what must be done, so was your father, but he just wouldn't believe it. I have held the trust for too long already and my body fails, you are the next in line.’

Jake went numb, he hadn't expected to get to the point this early in the meeting. Five minutes ago he was still sitting in his car. All he knew was that his family looked after an object of value