Banshee Angel Of Judgement

BANSHEE

By
Billy Young

She was the banshee, who sought revenge
against those she saw as guilty and deserving of imprisonment in
her jar. She had called down the curse on those that sent her to
her death, falsely accused of witchcraft. Now she looks for new
souls to add to her collection of tortured spirits. At night she
would go forth from her derelict cottage to hunt the unwary and now
she has her sights set on another two victims to fill her with new
power

COPYRIGHT 2008 © William
Young

COVER BY W. Young AND C.
Young

Smashwords
Edition

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

ISBN:
978-1-4523-1107-4

All
characters, event and places are fictional and any resemblance to
any real people, places or event
s is purely a coincidence.

This e-book is
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the hard work of this author
.

To those that read this
book, it’s dedicated to you; I hope you enjoy the story
within.

Other
book
s by Billy
Young:

A Winter
Journey

Teddy the Bear

Prologue

14
^th
May 1968

Mandy pulled
down
on the handle of the
hammer prising the cross from the wall. It fell to the floor,
leaving its ghostly shadow behind on the wall. It bounced once
noisily echoing in the little basement. She had thought they had
removed the many crosses from the house but found this one in the
cellar on the wooden wall that supported the stairs that led down
into the basement as she explore this small underground
room.

“
Mandy are you
down there!” Frankie called down the stairs.

“
Yeah I’m
just coming!” She shouted back to her boyfriend as she straightened
up after retrieving the Christian symbol from the dirt floor. She
looked along the wall, she had expected a door to a cupboard yet
there had been none. She quickly raced up the stairs to the bare
room above, her maxie skirt allowing her ease of movement as her
sandals flip-flopped on the stairs, which they planned to make into
their kitchen as it had once been in the past.

“
What were
you doing down there?” Frankie asked. He was dressed just as
casually as his girlfriend but in corduroy trousers and a woolly
over sized jumper with a zigzag pattern just below the shoulders
running across the body of it.

“
Just
checking it out. I found this on the wall by the stairs,” she
handed Frankie the rough wooden cross.

“
I thought we’d got rid of all of them, well it will do for
firewood,
” he said as he broke
it in two, dropping it by the old deep sink with its pump handled
facet.

“
Why do think
there were so many?” Mandy furrowed her brow.

“
No idea,”
Frankie shrugged his shoulders, “maybe it was to keep the ghost at
bay.”

“
Don’t, you
know that sort of thing scares me,” Mandy hadn’t wanted to move
into the old house in the woods because it was said to be haunted;
only agreeing after all her friends had convinced her there was
nothing in the old stories about the cottage, though she still had
reservations that she now kept to herself.

“
We’re supposed to be meeting
the others down the pub for beers,” Frankie smiled broadly
at the scolding looks from the slender figure before
him.

“
Yeah, I just
thought I hadn’t seen the cellar so wanted to have a nose,” she
explained as they turned to head down the long hallway past the two
facing doors half down the passageway, one leading to the front
room whilst the other allowed access to the stairs to the upper
floor, towards the front door to meet up with their three
friends.

Below in the
cellar behind the wooden wall the banshee, trapped for so long,
knew her imprisonment
was
over. With those hated symbols removed she was free now to leave
the place she now called home in search of vengeance against those
foolish enough to have released her. All that stopped her now was
the light of day; darkness would come soon enough
though.

“
Soon,” she
said aloud without noticing she had spoken. She thought about the
joy she would have with fresh souls to play with. She wandered over
to a jar that sat on a granite plinth sticking out of the stone
outer wall. She stroked it mischievously watching her ensnared
collection of damned souls that had made her who she now was. She
felt like screaming out her mournful cry but saved it for she
guessed she would need its full force before the night was
out.

The years
locked away in the confined space had taken a great toll on her as
each day melted into the next. She had lost track of how long it
had been since last she had called out her wailful
so
ng in the moonlight, sending
a chill into any who heard it. Now she could once again bring fear
and death to those who wandered her woods during the hours of
dark.

It
was when the old teacher moved into
her home in the early nineteenth century, heedless of the warnings
that it was haunted, that the banshee had been made the captive.
The old teacher had workmen brought in from other towns to sort the
place up for her. Helen had tried to scare them off but somehow the
old hag had a way of getting them back or finding others to do the
work she required.

It was the old
schoolmistress who had the room boarded over and a cross placed on
every door in the small cottage, locking her behind the wall. It
was that old hag that was a true witch, able to imprison the
banshee for over a hundred and fifty years as people came then left
hurriedly; complaining of strange wailing noises, the only thing
the banshee had left to chase them off with.

As time went
on she heard less people moving into her dwelling so she contented
herself with her jar of souls. Those trapped within grew weaker as
she drew
her strength from
them so she could screech her mournful cry for them, to remind them
of the wrong they had done in life.

Night came
releasing her
from the cell
into its embrace. She couldn’t wait to drift through the sweet
darkness, between the trees, her senses unable to cope at first
with all the things it perceived and she had missed. Slowly she
found focus as the long-haired ones returned to her home, as if
they could claim it from her.

She waited
till they had settled in for the night then
drift
ed back to the cottage.
The banshee studied the old structure as she waited for them to go
to bed. She finally saw the lights being extinguished so quickly
approached, as she knew it would soon be dawn so had to be quick in
collecting these spirits or they might escape her
clutches.

She
st
ruck out at the three
sleeping soundly in the old parlour deciding not even to wake them
so as not to alert those in the large upper room. She took their
souls for her collection without feeling, no time to enjoy her
chosen calling.

Mandy woke
knowing some
thing wasn’t right
so she shook Frankie to half consciousness. “What is it?” He
queried blearily, wishing only to get back to the blissful dream
he’d been enjoying.

“
I don’t know, I’ve just got a feeling that’s all,” she
answered
looking around the
dark room for some sign of what had roused her.

“
Oh,” he said
coming too at the notion of some action as her naked form brushed
against his, “really.”

“
Not that kind
of….”

Her words was
cut short as the ghastly twisted form of the screaming, hellish
banshee rose out of the floor like an insidious plant growing out
of the soil to steal the life from all around.

Mandy didn’t
wait as the thing turned with that soul chilling scream filling the
last of the night. She
rolled
out of the bed and left Frankie to the thing as she rushed for the
small window, fear driving her through it without stopping. The
small square glass panes slicing her flesh, as they gave as her
weight forced its way through them.

She landed
hard
onto the broken glass
covered ground, chilly air all the more noticeable in her naked
state. She pushed herself up then began to run as fast as her
injuries allowed as the blood oozed from her wounds. She thought
she heard the creature coming behind her, a child like whimpering
accompanying it as it came for her. Mandy felt it turn to head back
where it had come from as the sky lightened and she turned to head
down the hill into the town.

Mandy kept
going though afraid that if she stopped that it might return. She
ran until she collapsed from exhaustion as well as the loss of
blood. When they
her found
lying on the main street, that ran through the small town, she was
barely alive but alive she was. She never told anyone what she
remembered pretending to have amnesia to avoid the questions of
what had happened, though the police had many they had wished she
would answer. Eventually everyone stopped asking though the gossip
remained.

Soon after she
left the hospital she had been taken to
, she also left the town she had always known as
home.

C
hapter 1

Andy trotted
after Micky
, after colleting
his bag from his locker. “Slow up,” he called after his work
colleague.

“
You’re a bit
slow tonight; you’d think you’d actually done some work today,”
Micky smiled at the younger man.

Micky was nine
years older than Andy and this was his sixth year working for
Lyndon’s Castle Theme Park
.
Over the past two weeks both men had been working to get the park
prepared for the new season after it being closed for the winter.
They were tasked with all the small jobs around the park that
maintenance didn’t have time to do.

“
I didn’t think there would be as much to do as there is,”
the young student said wearily. At eighteen this was his first job,
a chance to earn a little money before he went to college. He stood
taller as well as thinner than the stocky form of Micky.
Both men wore similar faded jeans,
heavy sweatshirts under their jackets and muddy trainers covered
their feet.

“
Well it gets
easier once the park opens, then you’ll find half the time you’re
just standing about bored out your skull,” Micky smiled warmly at
the new start as they exited the cabin that acted as the staff
canteen and locker room.

Outside the
late March sun sat low in the cloudless sky as the two men made
their way through the gates that separated the cabin from the
public part of the park. Onto the main thoroughfare that ran the
length of the park, they turned left heading for the rear gates and
the back road to the town of New Mills where they called
home.

“
What’s it
like when it’s busy?”

“
That’s when
the fun starts,” Micky liked it best when it was mobbed with
customers. “With some of the punters you get a real scream.” He
chuckled to himself at the thought.

“
What if
they’re kinda, you know, eh…” Andy was unsure if he could deal with
a difficult customer.

“
Just let
them do most of the talking, which they always seem to do but don’t
smile, that just makes them worse,” Micky acted as if he were the
fountain of knowledge yet knew every situation was
different.

“
I don’t know what I
’d
do if somebody were shouting at me, especially if it wasn’t because
of something I did,” Andy smiled nervously.

“
You’ll be
fine just remember to have fun,” Micky had said this to others on
previous years though few seemed to get into the spirit of the job
as he did. He felt Andy would, he seemed to have that glint in his
eye that said he like a good joke.