Black soul rose by John Jones... - HTML preview

Black soul rose

By

John Jones

1

Origins

In the middle of the Pacific ocean there lies an island, four miles long and three miles wide. I say in the middle. It’s actually two miles South-West of the actual centre, but no-one cares. Three quarters of it is jungle.

Anyway, this place is not on any map, and even satellites in the sky barely register it. It looks like just another ocean island, albeit very tiny. Of no real significance.

Back in 1759, it held very real significance for seven medical practitioners in London, whose methods of research ended with them being cast out of their university, but that didn’t stop them trying to learn.

Not long afterwards they were to serve a life sentence for taking vagabonds from the streets and experimenting on them. They preferred them alive. The authorities, whilst not caring about the homeless and beggars decided to show that they were doing something and that this was wrong and immoral, hence their jail term.

However, the Mayor at the time had wanted to be seen as compassionate and seen to be trying to change violent criminals into feeling regret and remorse. So a separate unit was set up three miles away where they would undergo therapy to turn them into good citizens. Citizens, that if seen to have changed into good people, could then be let out into the community.

Along the way however, in their horse drawn carriage, they were not even chained, the mayor placing trust where there was none. Trust in that they would be enthusiastic about trying to become better people. Excited about the opportunity to have their life sentences over-turned and to walk free. What a great opportunity this was. Thank-you Mayor, you really are a forward thinker.

You even trusted us enough to only have two guards over-seeing seven violent murderers.

They were not the first to travel to this new unit. Other violent criminals received the same treatment as them, and reports were good from inside. The felons were making progress.

None had tried to escape en-route.

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Except for the seven medical practitioners, who slaughtered their guards easily, as well as the man in control of the horses of the carriage. They caved in his skull with rocks and threw his mangled brain to rats and cockroaches. There was nobody around along this narrow road, midway between the prison and the new building where they were to have their therapy.

They used the rocks on the guards heads to make them passive, not to kill them. They wanted to see if they could control the horses enough to roll the wheels over their necks. To see if it was heavy enough to kill them.

It turned out, it was.

So out into the world they went. The Mayor lasted another two months in his post before he was ousted, and the unit was closed.

They didn’t go their separate ways however, and were not pursued. No wanted posters ever appeared. In those days escaping was easier, and criminals vanished into the night.

They continued their ‘experiments’ on people, and execution methods, for many years, not staying in one place, until they kind of began not so much to go their separate ways, as to just come together only once every week, every two weeks, every month, until one of them decided to go abroad. To see the world, to travel.

His name was Jason Fleetham. One of those go-getter types, who would say yes to anything.

Would you like to drink this strange substance? Yes.

Would you like to fight a bear? Yes.

Would you like to climb this active volcano? Yes.

The kind that once he gets a bee in his bonnet, nothing is going to stop him until he decides on something else. So he thought he would like to be an explorer, discovering new lands and species.

Well, he found something that could have far-reaching consequences for humanity.

On the coast of Chile, he bought a rickety rowing-boat which he himself made sea-worthy, and off he went, heading to the Pacific horizon. Fear and apprehension barely registered inside him, even when a curious blue whale 3

followed him for three miles, or when he saw shark-fins in the distance. The sharks couldn’t be bothered however, perhaps they just weren’t hungry that day. There were some merchant ships that passed nearby on their trade routes, but after a while there were days and days of nothing, of the ocean horizon surrounding him. His rations were lasting though, but he suspected there might be two weeks worth left.

Eventually, he sighted an island.

On that island was a tribe of natives. The Nurabi. He tried to integrate himself with them.

They were not hostile, but didn’t welcome him into the fold.

He camped on the beach for three days, but Jason was the kind of man that chipped away until he got what he wanted. The Nurabi slowly but surely came to realise he was not a threat, and gradually allowed him inside.

Where they made their biggest mistake.

He ‘was’ a threat.

They came to trust him, and after a week he discovered that the Nurabi were keeping a secret from the rest of the world. They were keeping it to themselves.

The black rose was a real flower. Not modified or manufactured as could be found in society. This was genuine, made by nature, and only grew on that island.

The tribe had discovered a long time ago, maybe 500 hundred years, that if you swallow one of the seeds, and somebody else close by also swallows one of them, the consciousness of one can be transferred to the other. Like the soul, or spirit of a person passing through teleportation portals inside the mind.

The consciousness of the other, however, is pushed out, and their body is then

‘possessed’. The other soul goes on into the afterlife as normal.

Jason stayed for a further two days. He couldn’t let this go. He had to take this to his colleagues.

Yet he knew the Nurabi wouldn’t let him take it off the island.

So he killed them all.

All 62 of them. Cutting their throats as they slept.

4

He put as many of the black roses into the boat as he could, and sailed back the way he had came.

Then had them packaged up in Chile, because as far as they were concerned, they were just some different coloured roses, so what?

He wound his way back to London and met the others, where they all agreed to keep, and use the roses for themselves.

They of course, had to test it out. So they did it several times, and it worked.

Knowing that if it got out into the public, the whole world could be plunged into pandemonium.

One of them owned a greenhouse in an allotment where he grew tomatoes and carrots. The black roses could be grown and cultivated there. They all put their finances together and bought the place, much to the chagrin of the other gardeners who had to leave.

They couldn’t stay however, and didn’t want to, there were so many young, attractive bodies out there to possess. Other lives to lead. From youth to old age. They would enter society and live the life of somebody whose body they took over, integrating as best they could into their families as the personalities changed. They would all stay in the same area, each promising to keep the secret of the black rose.

They grew the plants at the allotment, and cultivated the seeds, filling hip-flasks with them, and as much as it pained them to do it, they destroyed the remaining flowers at the allotment, making sure none grew back. They could grow them anywhere now, but only needed the seeds to possess others. Forcing one of them into the throat of a victim who would have no choice but to swallow, and taking one themselves, pushing out their soul from their body.

The victim would be so shocked by becoming an ethereal soul, looking down at their body, that they would be in a state of confusion, and that would be when their spirit would drift into the afterlife. The possessor however, used that minute before the soul departed to drive themselves into the physical brain of the victim, taking control of their body, and living as them until they decided to change bodies again. It was risky however, so they decided to live the life of the possessed, before embarking on soul transferral again.

With all the flowers gone from the allotment, and all the seeds in hip-flasks, soon to be transferred to one vacuum flask which they hid and treasured, 5

needing it when it was time to change bodies again, they entered society, and would sometimes continue their ‘experiments’, travelling around the country, settling in communities, satisfying their bloodlusts, their medical curiosities until it was time to move on, find new lives to lead.

When they reached the age of pensioners, it was time for new blood…

“If he comes any closer, we’ll kill him,”

“Yes,” his companion replied, as they watched as a hiker tourist looked at a map on his phone and compared it to a dog-eared laminated one he also held. They were in a wooded area, and two eight-year old boys were stood at the top of a slope, peering over a bush that was almost as tall as them, watching the other man down by a pathway about forty metres away, looking confused.

After a few more moments, something must have clicked for the tourist as he smiled and stepped back onto the pathway and continued on his way.

“I’m almost disappointed,” said one boy, “think I might have liked to get the blood flowing”. He flexed his hands, then turned. They both walked back through shrubs and trees to an old abandoned bowling club, long reclaimed by nature, the bowling green itself on the far side a haven for wildlife.

Around twenty years ago the last member locked the place up due to dwindling membership, and the fact the place was difficult to get to. The founders wanted the place fairly remote but close enough to society, an ‘exclusive’ place, members-only, but still, it had been picked over by squatters, by people chancing upon it, and those curious to explore derelict places.

Anyone could come and go, the doors were broken and there was no electricity.

It was just a building, a shell, a skeleton. If the place was once alive, it was now dead.

The two boys entered back into the lounge area, where they rejoined five other eight-year olds. Two were walking slowly around, and the others were looking down at the dead bodies of seven pensioners.

6

In the small car-park where the only vehicle was a phthalo blue transit van the children gathered together. The tallest of them, with blonde hair said:

“You all know we need to hide this,” and he held up the metal vacuum flask full of black rose seeds, “but where?”

One of the girls pointed to the square overgrown grass beside the building where the game was once played. In the far corner was a large Beech tree. It looked as if it had seen the place being built, seen all its comings and goings, seen every match, and its doors close.

“At the base of that tree, we’ll bury it,” the others agreed, and they traipsed across the grass and weeds, and came to the tree where there were some rocks and stones and twigs.

“We’ve nothing to dig a hole with,” one said. The boy with the flask got on his knees and moved a large stone, then began digging with his hands, scooping out soil until he’d made a hole about two feet deep. He put in the flask, and covered it all back over, replacing the stone. Then he stood up.

“So that will be dug out in about eighty years. Of course we need to periodically keep checking this to make sure the tree is still here, this stone, and that it’s not getting bulldozed to make way for a housing estate”.

“Yes,” said another, “we need to keep our eye on it, but it should be okay there.

The place hasn’t been touched in years by the looks of things”.

“Still, it’s always a precarious moment, letting them go. Well hiding them.

Alright, make a mental note folks. Look around. Get this place in your memory”.

They wandered around for a few minutes. Looking at the tree, the building, for when they returned here, they would know what to look out for.

“Also when we go into the village, we need to know the route. How to get back here, but we’ll do that over time. Alright, regroup at the van”.

They walked back to the small car-park where their van was open, inside the maps the children had been using for their orienteering venture.

“Alright, we’re going to have to be found. If we make our way back to where these kids were taken, then maybe someone will recognise us”.

7

“But they were taken out in the country”.

“They were map-reading weren’t they,” said another. “I think they were on some field trip”. One of the two girls stepped to the side of the van and looked at the maps they had left, along with pencils and compasses.

“I think they were orienteering. Anyway, here we go, one of them has marked different places, and that place looks like it could be a building”. She handed out the maps.

“Yes,” said another, “could be the base where there will be teachers panicking now cos’ they’ve lost some kids”.

“Looks about three miles,”

“Alright,” the tall blonde said, “we’d best get going. Remember, when we’re discovered, we’ve lost our memories because of the trauma of being lost”.

“Will that be believed?”

“Well we’re kids aren’t we? We can get away with anything”.

“I wonder what my name is,” said one, “but I’ll find out soon I suppose”.

They didn’t speak much as they made their way along many country lanes and across fields featuring lazy cows and sheep that barely batted an eyelid as they traipsed past.

When they reached a well-worn stile into another field, the blonde boy stopped and gathered them together.

“I’m bloody knackered,” said one of the girls, “how far to go?” One of the others looked at the map, confused for a moment, then said:

“It looks like there’s another path on the other side of this field. I think that’s where we were taken”.

“Okay,” said the blonde boy. “Remember to act like kids. It’ll be difficult but we’ve got to, we’ve done it before. Stick together as best as possible. I’m guessing we all go to the same school, so we’ll meet up in the playground at breaks and whatever”.

They all knew they didn’t need to stay together. Each knew the location of the flask, but because of the implications of such a scientific discovery, it had initially frightened them, and when people collectively get frightened, they stick together. Their friendship was strong before the discovery, even despite them 8

not initially staying together after their jail term, but they would have been lifelong friends anyway, united in murder, in learning about the human body. Now they were together in their collective secret, bonded potentially forever. They chose to stay with each other. Similar to a gang, or a support group, in the same boat, bound by the black rose, by their secret, and would protect it until the end of the human species.

They entered the empty field and rambled until they came to another stile and all gathered together on a country lane, one of them looking at the map.

“Oh my…there you are!”

They all looked in the same direction, to an adult about sixty-feet away waving his arms and heading towards them, looking panicky even from that distance.

“There you are where have you been? Where have you been?”

“Alright folks,” the blonde boy muttered, “here we go. Here we fucking go”.