Hellsborough & The Dark Peak

Hellsborough Chronicles - Hellsborough and The Dark Peak

The semi-mythical Van Hallam's adventures in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak.

The finished version of Dark Peak: Hellsborough Chronicles Book One, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats from Amazon -- or you can download the first 7 chapters for free in ePub or Kindle mobi format from Hellsborough Library

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Introduction » Chapter 1 » Chapter 2 » Chapter 3 » Chapter 4 » Chapter 5 » Chapter 6 » Chapter 7 »

That was what started it all, Pip. When I was a lad. Bit of a handful I was, says Van, having another suck on his pipe. I'd been dragged up, around here - just round the corner over there, he says nodding his head upwards and outwards towards the Middlewood Road. Mother died giving birth to me, so I'm told. Taken in by a nice enough bunch of folk, my Mother's sister -- Mum -- don't know whether we were blood really. Some of the kids -- my cousins, I guess -- had grown up and I was the youngest of them left at home. Had to learn things quick and always needed to protect myself from someone or something having a go. Was always a bit different to them though, could never quite put my finger on what it was. Just felt like I didn't always fit in, I had this independent streak: A need to stand on my own two feet, to forge my own way.

Van spits wings onto the quarry tiled floor. Mum cried when she first saw me wearing make-up. But it never felt strange to me. The nethermen did, they're a strange bunch for sure, and hanging about with them, across the other side of the tracks got me into the make-up. They all use it, it's their religious beliefs. It became a part of me in those formative years, and never went away. Van briefly removed his trimmed down psycmask then, showing the heavily tattoo-d skin around his eyes -- white stars with a green halo adorning that grey lined face.

My family, they weren't netherlanders. No, they were just jellies -- regular folk. They got up when their psycmasks told them to, they went to work and did their jobs, they ate what they were fed when they were fed it. They spent their earnings how they pleased. They were happy enough, I guess. We all grumble a bit don't we, but they weren't ever the types to go all weird and join any resistance or anything like that. It wouldn't have ever have crossed their minds that there was anything to resist against. They did what they did, and did what they were told and they got on with their lives, because that's what you do, isn't it, when your human? But as I said, I knew I was different. I tried the the other side of tracks, but you know, some things you know aren't you. The only thing that stuck was the make-up.

The netherman -- the crosslanders -- of which Van speaks are the warring factions that exist beyond the Murk of Hellsborough. The long displaced families of the Leys, the Woods, the Marshes and the Moors, they have been at war with each other for eons. Which tribe the crosslander in the bar tonight is from, your guess is as good as mine. I'm no expert, but looking at his markings, if you're putting me on the spot, I'd say Ley. Don't hold me to it. The differences between the tribes are subtle, and saying the wrong thing to the wrong group has been known to be a fatal mistake.

Anyway, so I'm told, these tribes of netherman fight and squabble over nothing much, since there is little to fight and squabble over out there in the crosslands. Life -- at least so we are told, beyond Hellsborough -- is a miserable existence, and these crosslanders are no better than vermin. The hive chatter says so.

It was a rite of passage, says Van, still pointing at the Jack card. I was that age. That age where fear doesn't come into the equation. Didn't know what an equation was back then anyway. The Dark Peak, The Wisewood, The Barnsdale forest, they were just place names. I was brought up here, in Hellsbrough, those places held no fear for me, places to be explored and found out about. But now when I think back, I was lucky to ever come back. Of course, things were simpler then, they always are, aren't they, things are always simpler back in the day.

I don't ask Van for more details, just leave him to his rambling. I understand his way.

I'd followed the family tradition, of course I had, I didn't know any better did I really? Despite my dalliances with the netherfolk and the make-up. I kept the psycmask on, that's what my brothers and sisters did, what my mother and father did. I'd been working in the ganister mines, up on the common; toiling on me hands and knees for a dozen hours a day or more, pulling them carts full of the stuff down the coal pit lane and then bringing the empty cart back up again so it could be refilled.

It was gruelling work. The psycmask governed my daily life, provided me with everything I needed to survive: Food, breathing help, the entertainment I needed to get me through the working days and nights. After our shifts, we'd go down the pub, or go out and do some sort of activity, you know, picnics, walks, that sort of thing, on days when the Murk wasn't so oppressive. I guess I was content, that's what they aim for I think, they aim to keep you content, and you don't notice anything is wrong, because nothing is wrong -- nobody says anything is wrong at home or down the pub or out on some social do. So nothing ever is wrong, is it? Everything is normal. So normal that you never question it. But is it? Is it normal?

I want to ask Van who they are, but he rolls on with his monologue.

I just knew there was something better. The nethermen they made me question things, because of the way they attituded themselves. They didn't think us jellyheads were normal at all. They thought we was all soft in the head, that's where the phrase comes from you know -- jellyhead, pretty obvious, right?

I don't know what most of their upbringings was, some of them were like me. Some of them were poor, some of them were richer, I didn't really take them seriously. But they did make me look at things with a set of eyes other than my own, if you know what I mean? They gave me another perspective. I always had this yearning, this reason to strive for something else, something better, something deeper. They -- my family -- would always try and tell me that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but the thing is -- I knew it was. I wasn't just daydreaming as I pulled that ganister cart and listened to that drivel from the psycmask. I actually knew that the grass was greener on the other side. I just didn't know where it was, where that grass was greener -- where that other side that I was looking for, was. I just knew that something was wrong in this place, and this place isn't the same as other places and maybe I could do something about it, rather than just accept the humdrum as gospel -- like I had been brought up to do.

One day, after another twelve hour shift lugging another cart up and down that hill, instead of heading to the pub, I went straight home. I took off my psycmask and felt a wave of freedom come over me, free from the chattering of the hive and the constant ads and infotainment.

Back then, those psymacks were full head affairs, not the slim fit models that we have today -- well mine is, obviously, yours is a bit chunkier Pip. But back then, they were real headbangers -- Anyway, I knew that I wouldn't survive long without one, I'd likely suffocate, since that was what we used to breath. But without that constant chatter and augmented view of the world, I could see and think freely for a change, and that, at that moment, was more of a prize than breathing. It was a first taste of freedom, a glimpse of a place where the grass is greener. But of course, I knew that I needed a supply of air, even if I didn't want the liquid feed. I wanted to eat solid food, wasn't sure if my body could handle it, but that's what I wanted to do, I wasn't exactly getting fat on that bio feed; none of us did, I think the design was to keep us in a state of emaciation, of constant hunger.

I decided that I needed to modify the helmet to my own needs, which was to keep the breathing apparatus and nothing else. I didn't want or need the infotainment or the hive chatter, so figuring that was delivered via the antenna at the back, I snapped it clean off. Placing the thing back onto my head, for the first time, I felt a blessed silence. My view of the world through the eye sockets was also clear -- no longer augmented at all. All that remained was the feeding pipe, which I pulled out and Bob's your uncle, a psycmask that did what I needed it to do, rather than it doing everything for me, like a mother does for an infant. I'd have to take it off to eat, but that was the least of my problems. Finding something to eat would likely be more of a challenge.

There was no food in our kitchen; what with my parents and siblings varied comings and goings -- according to the needs of the world we worked in and governed and fed by the psycmasks, there was no need for actual food to be stored anywhere -- you simply collected your biofeed from one of the many community feed points. You collected your daily bread. There was nothing else to take, I would have to forage on my way and see how things went. I didn't bother washing, my face and hands were black with dirt.