ETERNAL NIGHTMARE - Part Two

While pouring himself another portion of the tasty broth, Max settled down in front of the fire. At this quiet moment the atmosphere around him instantly became icy cold. For a spilt second, a sensation that he was being watched caused him to sit bolt upright and turn his head to check the area behind him.
"Is that you?" he yelled, his voice suddenly tinged with fear induced anger. "Alright, enough is enough. You've had your fun."
Pausing for a moment, straining to hear anything, Max rose from the chair in a slow deliberate movement. Preparing himself to be suddenly reunited with his host. His move completed, his stance firm and still, he stood alone.
"Come on Max. Your imagination is playing tricks on you," he tried to convince himself. "You're tired. That's all."
Tired he may be. Frightened, he definitely was, but nothing could have prepared for the shock of the outer door bursting open, slamming back on its hinges and impacting the wall with a mighty thud.
Max froze in terror when, framed in the doorway stood the silhouette of a tall figure. A giant of a man, his head and most of his face concealed with a hood, and in his right hand, Max could just make out the shape of a shotgun.
"Who ... who are you?" he managed to stutter.
"I should be asking you that," the stranger replied in a deep booming voice, befitting of his imposing stature. "I own this damn cottage, sow hat are you doing in here?"
"I came here to get out of the storm," Max replied, "An old woman let me in."
The big man laughed loudly, turning and calling out into the garden. "It's okay, Edna. Come on in. There's another young fella in here who's seen Etty."
When the man stepped aside a woman of almost the same bulky proportions rushed head long into the room.
"So what brings you out here on a night like this?" asked the stranger.
"My car broke down, a couple of miles down the road. I set off walking and stumbled across your cottage."
"Lucky for you, you did, I reckon," again the stranger laughed. "If you'd carried on down that road, the nearest village is a good ten miles away."
"So .... Who's Etty?" Max asked, when the saddened couple crossed the room and stood drying in front of the fire.
"Never mind that now. You get your coat on and we'll go up to the house, where it's a bit more comfortable?"
"I thought you said this was your cottage?" Max. interrupted.
"Aye lad, so it is. But we ain't daft enough to live in the drafty old place, we just use this as extra space when we has visitors. "I'm Jake by the way, and this here is the wife, Edna." The man announced in his usual jovial manner, holding out his hand for Max to shake.
"Max ... Max Deacon," Max responded, wincing from the strength of Jake's firm grip.
Edna moved forward, making her way through to the back room. "Come on you two, let's get up to the house, then I'll make us all a nice hot supper, and we can dry off properly from this God awful storm."
Once again clad in his soaking jacket, Max fell inline behind the big couple and followed in their hurried footsteps. In no more than a few minutes, they had crossed a small yard and were entering a much grander looking farm house.
"Come in Max ... come in and make yourself at home," Jake welcomed, already busily taking off his wet coat. "You can bed down here for the night, then we can take the Land Rover up the main road and see if we fix that car of yours."
Seeing that the storm was still raging furiously, Max was more than happy to accept Jake's kind invitation.
The two men went through into a rather grand living room, while Edna began preparing a hot supper in the kitchen.
"So, you've seen Etty then aye?" Jake began, his rugged face showed signs of wrinkles, as he tried to hold back another burst of laughter.
"Evidently so," Max, mumbled in reply. "She opened the door and invited me in, then disappeared. I never saw her again after that."
"Aye lad, that sounds about right. That's Old Etty's usual trick."
Max looked puzzled.
"You were lucky, see!" Jake began to explain. "You only met the ghost of Old Etty Miller, the old dear who used to live in that cottage before me and my Edna bought it some thirty years back. Ain't that right, Edna?"
"Yes dear. That's right. She was a lovely old dear, though some round here would have it that when night fell over the moor, Old Etty turned into a wrinkly old witch, amusing herself by laying terrible curses on the farms nearby."
"Awww, hush woman." Jake laughed back. "That's all silly local gossip, now if you had missed the cottage and carried on down the road a way, you would have come to a cross roads, where you, more en likely would have bumped into 'Shucky'
"Stop that, Jake. You're gonna frighten our poor guest to death." Edna warned, when she entered the room laden with bowls of steaming soup and a generous pile of crusty bread.
"You take no notice of Jake, he likes scarring people whenever he can. Thinks he's clever he does. Now you settle back and enjoy your nice soup. It's my own special recipe you know. It's been in the family for generations," she explained, carefully handing Max a bowl half filled with the aromatic, steaming liquid. "It'll warm you up inside."
Max tasted the soup, finding it just like the broth before it was delicious. With very few words spoken he finished the bowl, wiping away all the remnants with convenient chunks of the fresh crusty bread.
"I expect you're exhausted, after your long ordeal, Mr. Deacon." Edna said, sympathetically, noting her guests chin lowering towards his chest, as weariness began to overtake him. "I'll show you to the guest room where you can rest easy for the rest of the night."
"Aye Max. You get a good nights sleep, then we'll go and fix your car in the morning," Jake agreed.
When Max rose from the chair he swayed precariously. A strange wooziness had taken hold of his body, he felt totally drained of all energy. The room began to spin with increasing chaos, and his hosts voices took on a strange echoey quality.
"Wow there, young fella. You ain't looking too good," Jake laughed, taking hold of him with a strong arm and supporting his weak frame, while leading him into the next room and depositing him unceremoniously on a makeshift bed.
Max swiftly drifted into the dense darkness of unconsciousness, devoid of all thoughts, memories or dreamlike images. He fell deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of blackness.
Slowly a pin-head sized spot of brilliant white light began to increase in the distance, as if it were heading towards him. Though growing bigger and brighter it offered no illumination to the surrounding blackness. When the light was a dazzling orb before his eyes, Max heard the sound of birds chirping, nosily performing the dawn chorus, the light, he sun recognized as early daylight penetrating his eyelids, bathing them with warm rays from the sun as it began it's ascent into the early morning sky.
With slow achy movements Max began to pull himself upright from the pile of wooden boxes in the dusty room of the derelict farmhouse. The searing pain of the worst headache in his life racked his brain, his eyes struggled to focus, and disperse the haziness that blurred every object before him.
Only then did the horror of reality hit him, holding him momentarily in rigid fear, as the blurry memories of the night before began to surface. He spared no time to analyze how the spotless and luxurious farmhouse in which he had shared supper with Jake and Edna, after being discovered in Etty's cottage, sheltering from the storm.
Forgetting his fragile state, Max jumped to his feet and ran head long for the door, never attempting to slow his panicked sprint until he reached the road, where he froze in complete confusion when confronted by the sight of his car. Still spurred on by an irrational fear he jumped in the drivers seat. The keys were still dangling from the ignition.
"This can't be happening. I must still be dream," he gasped, turning the keys and listening to the engine purr into smooth life.
"When will I wake up from this damn nightmare!"
There came a horrifying, booming laugh from the passenger seat beside him. A panicked turn of his saw revealed Jake sat there, rolling in a huge roaring belly laugh. From his eye corner he caught sight of the piercing eyes of Etty and Edna sitting on the back seat, they too laughed at Max's helpless stare.
"I want out of this damn nightmare NOW!" Max screamed when he opened the door and bolted out onto the road. Jake's laughter mixed with the sound of the trucks deafening horn, those were the last sounds he heard as the darkness returned and engulfed. The last voice he heard was that of Jake, low and menacing in the distance;
"The nightmare never ends on Pendle Moor Top. The nightmares are eternal here, young Max, and now you are part of them."