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 »
It was with the last story that Van finally drained his final glass of ale, and yawning widely, started to make his excuses for leaving. The bar was empty, save for myself, Van and Shalesmoor the bar man, and had been for quite some time, not that Shalesmoor, who was paid by the second minded -- he would keep the place open for as long as you wanted him to.
Van was looking decidedly grey, and knowing that we could continue his story telling tomorrow, I did not try to continue things this evening -- although I hoped that we would get some more good meat for his biography then.
And so it was that we bade each other farewell, promising to return tomorrow afternoon after lunch to continue our discord. Van headed towards his house on the corner of the crossroads, and I sleeping in digs out the back of Owlerton headed in the other direction up Middlewood road, needing to cross over Hellsborough park. A sign at the entrance to the park reminded me that wearing a psycmask was a good idea --
PSYMASK FOR SANITY
(and this is the thing, the psycmask feeds your brain with advertising and hive mind chatter, but is promoted as being for your sanity, since not using one might make you insane)
-- and I automatically went to adjust the way that the thing sat on my face; finding that it was sitting as snuggly as it is intended. It was dark on the park and the place surrounded by the thick suffocating murk, which made for a quiet and lonely walk, but the chance of encountering any unpleasantries was slim due to the inability to see more than a few feet ahead and the lateness of the hour. Yet I could still determine isolated pockets of chatter and the occasional laughter, which made me quicken my steps, just to be on the safe side.
I was pretty sure that I had a guardian though, because Van would have seen to it that I had. Every now and then I would hear a subtle sniff or some shuffling of leaves, but the noises never came any closer -- Shad wouldn't want to distress me unnecessarily.