Drive

By Jonathan Dunne

Step into the House of Mirrors...

When Gracie Doyle and her friends visit Old Castle's wrecking yard on Christmas Eve to say goodbye to their deceased friend Kelly Monroe, they unleash a malevolent force lurking within the eerie attraction known as 'The Kill Car'.

Instead of finding closure, they open a mysterious portal to the supernatural world, plunging Gracie into a dark battle for survival as she grapples with twisted revenge and the murky boundaries between life and death.

Turning to her friend's blind old grandmother for help, Gracie uncovers startling secrets within the House of Mirrors, where illusions veil sinister truths, blurring the line between reality and nightmare with each passing moment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Dunne
• Release date: Apr 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224113439

Jonathan Dunne

Admittedly, Jonathan has done things arseways most of his life, from completing a BA in Literature in his thirties to fitting teeth brackets (30's, porcelain). During this general confusion, Jonathan has had various short stories published. Jonathan suffers from photophobia though has a tendency towards fireworks. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, he now lives the reclusive life in Toledo, Spain, as a bearded hermit, with his wife and three daughters. He is known to be found in the local cemetery at the weekend during daylight hours, though for goodness sake, don’t sneak up on him.  

Book preview

Copyright © 2024 Jonathan Dunne

All Rights Reserved.

Drive

No part of this work may be stored, transmitted, or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Some locations exist while others don’t. Actual locations that do exist have been altered by the author for the purposes of fiction and not to be construed as anything other than fiction. Any similarities that exist between locations, locales of any description real or fictional, including their time-frames and happenings, are purely coincidental as are any similarities that exist between persons, dead or living.

Any person/persons in the cover image is/are a model/s, and is/are not related to the character in this story.

Dedication:

To Carmel.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? — Edgar Allan Poe

Author’s Note

This novel you are about to embark upon shares a connection with my previous novel, Rosie . In Rosie , a devious and malicious spirit escapes from the pits of Hell during a demonic cult summoning and becomes an otherworldly fugitive in the very haunted and abandoned Ryan house in Old Castle. This entity is only a bitter aftertaste and the ghost’s identity is not revealed, appearing to be merely a subject of collateral damage and no consequence to the outcome of Rosie . However, in this novel, Drive , that same manifestation becomes a more important character.

You can read Drive without reading Rosie, and vice-versa as they are standalone novels, but if you’re a reader who likes to know more about the characters, their lives and deaths beyond the page, then I suggest reading Rosie to learn more about the origins of the terrorising spirit that trawls the beams and ceilings of the spacious Ryan household and sits by the grubby window waiting to be summoned and invited outside.

Table of Contents

Prologue The Blackest Grimoire 

Kelly’s Dead 

That Night 

Kill Car 

Traitors! 

The Awakening 

Drive 

Take Me Home 

Goodbye 

Snow Globe 

The Threat Part 1 

The Threat Part 2 

Breaking Glass 

The Jacker Sheehan 

Ding Ding Dong 

Knock Knock 

Hitman from Hell 

Blame the Banana 

House of Mirrors 

Harbinger of Doom 

Taxidermy Eyes 

Eleven Shards of Scorn 

Mirror, Mirror. 

Epilogue The Ouija Board 

The End 

Prologue The Blackest Grimoire

HER FINGERS STROKE the ingredients laid out before her on the table, relishing how the neat row of items feels to the touch, delighting in how the cold, sharp edge of the knife contrasts with the tickling brush of the sage. Shapes and textures have become more prominent while colour drained from her world long ago. 

She lights the herb and chants lost words, weaving back and forth with every hushed syllable. Her shadow dances and shimmers on the walls of the gloomy basement as the candle flame sputters. Electricity was never intended to illuminate this incantation. This malediction was written by candlelight five hundred years ago and meant to be carried out by the living light of the special homemade candle. The aromatic woodsy scent of smouldering sage rises in her nostrils. It is strange to think she has waited a lifetime for this moment. Now time is of the essence and the essence of time has already gone into this dark concoction she has been brewing...brewing...breeewwwing during the hours when the house sleeps and a monster creeps. Nobody would ever understand her reasoning; this is something that has been bubbling in her cauldron for years and she justifies her actions as she creates the perfect storm in a fine bone china teacup of burning sage.

Well, there is one person who understands her reasoning and she, too, has had her whole life to ponder this. But what that one person might not understand is why she was concocting a second curse when they had already planned everything out with meticulous precision. She thinks about a tendril of smoke finding its way through the keyhole to the nostrils of the sleeping inhabitant next door. After all, burning sage means only one thing in this household. How would she explain herself? She would think of something to say if it came to that. Anyway, there isn’t time now.

Before her, on the table, lays an ancient opened book — a banned tome. She has parted these very pages so many times that the two dog-eared folios have come away from the cracked spine, left hanging on spindly threads. Rather than reading the strange symbols and words, she gently caresses the vellum pages. She doesn’t need to read them because she memorised them a long time ago. It is the last volume of its kind and she paid a pretty penny for it. Oh yes, she did. Some would say she paid with her life. Strange to think she bought this book once upon a time to bring a loved one back from the dead. Oh, how the times have changed. Or have they? Not really. She is still summoning a spirit, just not the spirit she intended to summon. 

Thinking about the twisted version of herself she has become, she carries out the next step of the summoning. She scoops out the finely chopped hairs and sprinkles them into the glowing bone china teacup. The blonde hair hisses and sizzles in the sage, leaving a sulphurous stench to permeate the room. Spitting into the little smoking pile, she makes a paste between her thumb and forefinger. With a broken stick of hamamelis growing in the back garden, she stirs the mixture with the cracked end, allowing the heart of the stick and its sap to mix with the brew. 

And now to the next step...the step she has been fearing; she never liked pain — who does? — and though she has been living with it, she never got used to the pain. She feels for the knife, its blade glinting in the candlelight. With a wince, she drags the sharp cutting edge across her left palm, so sharp that she can barely feel it as it cuts through her epidermis like razor grass. She tightens her fist until droplets of blood flow freely from her clenched hand and into the cooling pasty ash.

Looming over the homemade potion, she waits for the last ingredient to be added, the one ingredient not on the table before her: tears. Her tears are never far away and a single salty tear falls from her left cheek into the ashes, fuelling the potency of the mixture.

She daubs the ashen blend onto her lips, then her fingers find the photograph on the table next to the heavy old book and she draws it to her lips, kissing the smiling occupant looking out from the picture — offering the kiss of death.

She lays down the snapshot with the smudged grey lip print, then scoops out more of the mixture and smears it across her own face at an angle from right to left, starting above her right eye socket, crossing down over her nose, lips, and chin, to below her left earlobe with her three middle fingers. Once the pasty streaks reach the point below her left ear, she continues down the left-hand side of her throat and ribcage, then stops over her heart, which might or might not be beating — she isn’t sure these days.  

She whispers a chant to her reflection in the large mirror on the wall: ‘In the light, I am nobody. In the dark, I am somebody.’

Quenching the candles, she is left alone in the darkness she no longer sees because the darkness consumed her long ago. A smile cracks on her lips and a devilish grin comes back at her from the darkness, though she doesn’t see it.

Kelly’s Dead

‘HAZE, please tell me that’s not what I think it is.’

Just the odd look on my friend’s face tells me it is exactly what I think it is.

Dusk has bruised into the night on this freezing, foggy Christmas Eve. I’m in denial about Kelly’s death and have been since she was taken from us a few weeks ago under highly unusual circumstances — the wise words of the local police sergeant, Big Tom Daly. At least, I have been in denial...until tonight. I refused to believe Kelly (Kells to you and me) was gone until I’ve just seen Hazel (Haze to you and me) standing by Billy Mac’s wrecking yard chain-link fence with the, um, and this is the part I’m struggling with right now. I can’t even bring myself to tell you what she has brought with her tonight, and I’m starting to wonder what she’s got in her backpack, too. What Hazel Brennan is holding in her cold hands brings a chill to my bones. I don’t want to remember my best friend this way because it turns Kells and her memory into something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and that’s not right. It turns her into a thing. But it brings more than that; it brings this horror home to me — how Kelly Monroe never got home that night. I realise now that I need to face the horror for closure. But not in this way, puh-lease. The last three and a half weeks have just been a bad dream, and we were waiting for Kells to walk back into our lives. It was all just one big mistake, that’s all.

‘Whoa, Haze. Where did you get that? I’ve never seen one in real life!’ exclaims Shane Maguire (just Shane to you and me) as he fishes for dog biscuits in his pockets.

I giggle at his reaction. I’ve known Shane all of my life, but he has only come to our group recently, not long before Kells left the group. But I have begun to see him in a new light and that started before Kelly was stolen from us. How could I possibly have affectionate feelings for this lovable moron who says, "Everything is going tits up!" all the time? Maybe it’s just that — because he’s a lovable moron!

Shane is gawping at the rectangular object Haze has just produced from beneath her woolly parka. I’ve known him a lot longer than Haze and there’s something not sitting right with me. Call it gut instinct. Seeing his face through the fog and the orange glow coming from the streetlight above us is giving me the heebie-jeebies. It’s as if he’s somebody who merely resembles Shane trying to fool us. I’m paranoid since I saw that thing in Hazel’s hand. That object has soured the atmosphere. I feel strange tonight, but Kells feels stranger to me on this silent stretch of road called South Quay on the outskirts of Old Castle. The streetlight above us is the first streetlight and marks the limit where the town begins. But I realise now that the streetlight also marks where Old Castle ends...and tonight it feels like Old Castle is ending. Just beyond that light is the new line road and the darkness of the countryside. It was on the new line where my dear Kells lost her life to a monster who should have never lived...and I mean monster. I don’t want to talk about it, but I suppose I should. I will say for now that whatever she met on the secluded stretch of road left her for dead and left behind the strangest signs the state pathologist’s office has ever seen. It was only a few weeks ago when the three of us were here with her, laughing our heads off at nothing, unaware of how sweet life was and how sour it was about to become.

In tense silence, we peer through the chain links. There, parked amongst the shadows thrown by the stacks of dead cars, is the black Audi Quattro. Silence fills the air as we contemplate the horror not even the dense fog can mask.

With our eyes on the old black crock, Shane comments, ‘Do you think the police considered the Monroe family’s feelings when they turned the ‘Kill Car’ over to the local wrecking yard?’

The Internet is calling the Audi the ‘Kill Car’.

‘Big Tom has really put his clumsy foot in it this time. He should’ve known things were going to go tits up when Kelly’s murder scene is parked in the local scrapyard. Sorry, but they’re fucking useless. But they’re not so useless at handing out parking tickets. The Monroes are going through enough turmoil as it is. And it’s Christmas.’

Hazel adds, ‘It’s not Christmas at the Monroe’s place. Every year they deck their house out in Christmas lights and hang a Christmas wreath on their front door. This year, they have a funeral wreath on their front door.’

We let that sink in.

Shane says, ‘I couldn’t be at home watching everyone in the festive spirit, drinking and stuffing themselves while Kelly is here on her own.’

I don’t know why, but I’m getting the impression that this little back-and-forth between my two friends is for my benefit. I think I know where this is going, but I refuse to believe it. You might not know Haze very well, but I know when she’s up to something. She gets all weird, acting all shifty, like when she cancels our meeting at her place — normally her old gran is the reason. Gran is tired. She’s gone for a lie-down. Or maybe, Gran isn’t feeling well and I need to look after her. We normally meet at my place or in the town square. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been to Haze’s house. I feel sorry for her, stuck with her old gran, who became her legal guardian after the car crash took her parents. I think she was only three or four years old when that happened. I know she’s grateful to the old woman for everything, but sometimes I can’t help but worry for Hazel in that gloomy, silent house, all alone with her blind grandmother. In a way, she’s kind of trapped there because she owes her granny everything and will take care of her no matter what the circumstances. Sometimes, I just wish she would put herself first... Sorry, I got sidetracked. Hazel’s leading up to the reason why she brought that ridiculous thing here tonight. It’s all part of her conniving little plan. ‘Guys, everybody is thinking about her. Everybody is hurting, but nobody wants to show it. I don’t think Kelly is here, and she’s not on her own.’ I speak my mind.

‘You don’t know that,’ Haze points out.

‘You’re right, I don’t. But I knew Kelly better than anyone and I know this isn’t her style.’

‘I’m not saying it’s her style. What girl likes to hang out in a wrecking yard on her own at night? She might not have a choice, Gracie. You ever think about that?’

‘Hazel,’ I summon every fibre of my being to not verbally attack her. She can be so stubbornly dumb. She has always had an eccentric streak in her. I think it comes from hanging around her ancient gran because she’s away with the fairies, as we like to say, down in these parts. That means she’s a little loopy.

Hazel adds, ‘I saw Kelly’s mom in town yesterday. She looked like a ghost.’

Hmm, subliminal suggestions, perhaps? That’s how Hazel likes to play.

Shane says, ‘And what about all those weirdos coming to see this car?’

‘Weirdos like us, you mean?’ I attempt a smile.

The so-called Kill Car has become a source of dark tourism. And not only in Old Castle, people are coming from all over to catch a glimpse of the tomb-on-wheels before it goes to the car crusher. That’s morbid. They didn’t even know Kelly. Three young people bolted when they saw us approaching tonight. They were here, drinking and looking at the dark car through the fence. They even left their half-empty bottle of Jägermeister after them. It was too foggy to make out any faces, and they probably didn’t know who we were either. The police have made it clear that no loitering around the wrecking yard is tolerated. Funny because they created the problem.

‘My father met Billy Mac down at The Hound on Saturday night,’ says Shane before putting on a thick Billy Mac accent, ‘Sick n’ twisted bastards are coming from all over the country to see the car.’

His imitation puts a smile on my face.

‘He told my old man he was going to charge the freaks to sit into the car and cash in on the dark tourism.’ He shakes his head. ‘The biggest freak at The Hound is Billy Mac, and he doesn’t even know it.’

The Hound is the busiest pub in town. It’s the same pub where police sergeant Big Tom Daly drinks Guinness and plays the banjo with his bluegrass band, The Dickie Tickers. Yes, you heard right: The Dickie Tickers.

‘And speaking of ghosts,’ mentions Hazel. ‘What if Kelly is still in there?’

I knew it! ‘Shut up, Haze.’ I fire back, but it’s too late. For a ghastly moment, I catch a fleeting glance of Kelly Monroe’s pale face peering out at me from behind that grubby windscreen. I look away. When I look back, she’s gone.

But Hazel is too overcome with emotion to shut up. With a quaver in her voice, she whimpers, ‘Kells must’ve felt so alone. None of us were there to help her.’

I do everything in my power to keep my hands in my pockets because if they leave my jacket, I’m going to sock her one, right in the jaw. Haze knows she just crossed the line. She knows this because of what went down that night. My guilt is enough; I don’t need anyone else’s