Tormentor by William Meikle

some of it in my eyes though.
    “The house is getting to you, isn’t it? You shouldn’t let it. They’re only stories—a strong man has nothing to fear from stories.”
    “And what about a weak man?” I said softly.
    He smiled.
    “That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Any time you need to talk, you know where the church is.”
    “I’m not a believer.”
    “It’s not compulsory,” he said, and laughed. “But you didn’t buy me a drink to get a sales pitch. You bought a story—another story.”
    He took a sip of the Talisker before continuing.
    “You’ve probably realized by now that your house is old—you’ve gone back in your stories to the time of the rebellion—but it’s older than that—much older. I suspect that some of the stonework might even go back to the earliest inhabited history of the island, several thousand years before Christ. Short of mounting a full-scale archaeological dig, the really early stuff is probably lost forever in the mists of time. But there is something I can tell you—the church has extensive records, as has the castle, and I pride myself on being something of a local historian. That’s how I know that there is a basis in truth in the name of the house. There was indeed a Spaniard—or rather, several of them.
    “The aftermath of their defeat by Drake saw many armada vessels attempt to make their escape by heading up the east coast and through the Pentland Firth to try to lose themselves in the islands before making south to home. Most didn’t make it—the seas around northern Scotland are treacherous at the best of times, and that, combined with one of the worst storms in memory, meant that many Spaniards were dashed on Scotland’s rocky shores. Five of them, in a single lifeboat, ended up here.
    “Their names are written in the parish records if you choose to look—there is no denying they were here. Just as there is no denying they were given your house to stay in and work the land. It’s written that it was a gift, of sorts, from the church—‘Ye dwelling and five acres that no honest man will touch, for it be blighted.’”
    I stopped him there.
    “Why weren’t they imprisoned? Weren’t we at war with Spain?”
    The minister laughed.
    “You might have been, but Scotland wasn’t. That was Elizabeth’s war, and she wasn’t all that popular in these parts. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what ‘blighted’ means—although there are plenty of acres of ground on the island that have proved too difficult to work for an honest man to make a living.
    “As far as I can tell, they lived there for several years. There are no records of any of them taking a wife—although that does not mean there was no fraternizing with the local women, just that none of it was sanctioned by the church.
    “And there is only one other thing I can tell you. Three years after they arrived, they were all dead and buried. Their stones are out at the back end of the churchyard. They’re faded and worn now, and scarcely legible, but if I have read them right, the men all died on the same date, and all have the same words inscribed beneath their names.
    “‘Gone to meet their maker, marching to a different drum.’”
    * * *
    When I switched on the radio the next morning, I heard “Spanish Harlem,” quickly followed by “Spanish Eyes” and “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
    It seemed the period of dormancy had been broken.

 
     
     
    4
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The conversation with the minister marked the start of a new phase in my relationship with the house, as if it had peeled back another layer of the onion and taken me one step closer to the center of the mystery.
    My twitch grew more pronounced. I found myself drumming out the repeater rhythm on my desk, on the kitchen table, even going so far as typing to the beat when composing e-mails on my laptop.
    No limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, left leg gone, no legs, no head.
    The e-mails