The cundy has always been there.
A concrete water conduit running beneath the coast road, hidden in the dene. Surrounded by trees, wildlife and shadows. As a child, I used to play inside it, daring myself further into the dark, scaring myself silly.
Its interior is absolute. Sound dies quickly. Light doesn’t travel far at all.
When I began writing horror, I knew I’d return to it eventually. Some places insist.
What surprised me was how much older the place felt than the concrete suggested. While researching local history, I learned that this land once belonged to Scula, a Viking warlord who was granted East Durham in the tenth century. Pagan gods. Old violence. Older beliefs. All layered beneath the ground I thought I knew.
A man-made tunnel set into land shaped over millennia began to feel like a meeting point. Not just of histories, but of ways of seeing.
The cundy isn’t frightening because it’s dark. It’s frightening because it feels like remembering something you can’t possibly know.
That was where the story began.
And it became part of my longer work The Cundy.
R. H. DIXON 