Darkness Ahead of Us | Book 2 | Darkness Falling

by Spencer, Leif

  She rushed into the bathroom and retrieved a bottle of disinfectant and a packet of cotton wool pads before returning to the kitchen. Using the cotton wool pads, she disinfected Sarah’s wounds. “I think by tomorrow, you’ll be winning the bruise competition.”

  “How are your ribs?”

  “Every breath hurts.” Anna carefully twisted her upper body and winced. “I’m not sure if he cracked a rib or just bruised my back badly.”

  “Let me look at your back.” Sarah gestured for her to turn around, and Anna lifted her shirt. “There is no bruising yet.” She pressed her ear against Anna’s back. “Take a deep breath.”

  “What are you doing?” Anna laughed and pulled away. “That tickles.”

  “Hold still.” Sarah gripped her by the shoulders. “I’m just making sure there’s no rattling sound.”

  Oreo suddenly growled, and Anna felt Sarah flinch as he pushed through her legs, lunging at the back door, his paws hitting the glass. He began to bark.

  Nellie was running towards the door, her face filled with anger. She was holding a piece of wood and smashed it against the glass door. “Let me in,” she screeched, then, “Gus! Where are you?”

  Anna swallowed, watching Nellie’s eyes blaze with fury. She hadn’t even noticed Oreo’s frantic barking. Like a woman possessed, she wouldn’t stop until the glass shattered.

  Anna had seen that face before.

  It was the face her father had worn most nights just before he’d hit her.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Sarah pulled Anna away from the door. “She can’t hurt us now.”

  Anna stood frozen in place, the fleeting memory of her father’s anger surfacing in her mind.

  Oreo kept barking at Nellie through the cracking glass, baring his teeth. The woman didn’t seem particularly strong, but eventually the door would shatter.

  Sarah pulled on Anna’s elbow. “What are you waiting for?”

  Anna pulled out her pistol and pointed it at Nellie, shouting, “Stop that and step away from the door.”

  Nellie pulled her lips away from her teeth, but she did as she was told. The wind tousled her hair. “Where is Gus?”

  Sarah ignored her question and said, “Do we just leave her out there? What about Gus?”

  Anna watched as Nellie dropped the piece of wood at her side. She tightened the belt on her bathrobe, looking small and lost on the patio. “Please? Is Gus okay? I’m—”

  Anna waved the gun around. “Shut up!” She blinked, trying to think.

  “Is it our responsibility to stop them? Is it our fault if they rob others after we let them go?” Sarah asked.

  “Yesterday, when I wanted to tell my neighbour that we were leaving, you insisted that we had to take care of ourselves first, and that we shouldn’t—”

  “I know. Maybe I was wrong, and we should have offered them our help. Besides, what if Gus and his banshee hunt us down?”

  “This isn’t the Wild West. We aren’t leaving tracks in the dirt. I doubt we’ll ever see them again if we leave now.”

  “So, we’re just moving on?”

  A muffled cry came from outside. “At least tell me if Gus is okay? Please?”

  Anna scowled at Sarah. “Nellie isn’t the only one, you know. There are hundreds like her out there. We can’t tie them all up and we most certainly can’t kill them all.”

  “I suppose you’re right. What about the insulin? Do we take it?”

  “Maybe it’ll save someone’s life, or we can trade it.”

  “Or we leave it with him,” Sarah said. “Taking it is either a death sentence for Gus or a guarantee that they’ll try and rob others.”

  “Wait a minute.” Anna retrieved Nellie’s handbag from the table in the hallway and searched for the list of diabetes patients. “Here it is. We destroy this, and she’ll—”

  “She might have memorised it.”

  Anna sighed and rubbed her face, suddenly feeling very tired. “I don’t know what to do, Sarah.”

  “We leave the insulin. We take the food, and we get out of here. Take all the tins.”

  Oreo stood by the door, growling, and Anna studied Nellie’s face. The woman had her hands curled into fists, her cheeks wet with tears.

  Their father was dead. Gus would die, too.

  Anna licked her lips and nodded. “Can we carry another bag? There are suitcases in the loft.”

  “Our old bikes are in the garage. We can tie the bags to them. Easier than carrying a suitcase.”

  “I like that idea.” Anna approached the back door cautiously and gestured for Nellie to take another step back before unlocking the door and opening it a crack. “We’re leaving. Gus is alive and Dad’s insulin is still on the kitchen table.”

  Realising this would be the last time she would ever stand on this patio, Anna looked up at the pale blue morning sky. The sun was rising, warming her face.

  “Are you coming?” Sarah asked.

  Anna glared at Nellie. “I want you to count to fifty before you come inside. If you follow us, I will shoot you.”

  Nellie hiccupped, her hands fiddling with her bathrobe.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Without giving Nellie another look, Anna closed the door, grabbed her rucksack and shouldered it before adjusting the waist straps. She whistled for Oreo to follow her.

  “Hello?” Gus’ voice was muffled by the closed bedroom door. “Anna? Sarah? Where are you going? You can’t just leave—”

  They headed into the garage and Anna switched on her torch. Their dusty bicycles were stacked against the back wall, rust eating away at the frames.

  Anna wiped the saddles with her sleeve while Sarah locked the door to the house behind them. Using some rope from her camping gear, Anna attached the bags to the bikes, then proceeded to pump air into the tyres.

  She smiled, thinking of how many times she’d prepared Sarah’s bike for a ride when they were children.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here,” Sarah said, clipping the lead into Oreo’s collar before handing it to Anna. “I’m sorry that I dragged you he—”

  “You couldn’t have known what was waiting for us.” Anna attached Oreo’s lead to her bicycle’s seatpost, then checked her brakes. “And you were right. Mum would have wanted us to check on him.” She opened the garage door and squinted, shielding her eyes with her hands. Waiting for them to adjust to the bright July sun, she asked, “Which way are we going?”

  “We don’t really know anyone else. At least not with enough room to take us in. Maybe Greg, but he lives all the way up in Lincolnshire. That’s…quite the bike ride.”

  Anna scowled. “What about friends? Geraldine? Can we trust Geraldine?”

  “Geraldine lives in Devon. Might as well cycle to Lincolnshire.”

  “Your neighbour, Jane?”

  Sarah shook her head. “She has two small children. Besides, Colchester is hardly safe.”

  “What about Oliver?”

  “Didn’t you see his Facebook update? He moved to Amsterdam a few months ago.”

  Anna frowned. “How did I miss that? Were there no leaving drinks?”

  “Of course, there were. You never replied to the RSVP.” Sarah laughed. “You’re such a social butterfly.”

  Oreo barked at the door.

  “I guess Nellie’s done counting,” Sarah said.

  Anna rubbed the nape of her neck. “What about Bob?”

  “Who’s Bob?”

  “Remember the guy I said I met near Braintree on my way to yours? He talked about his wife’s gardening skills, and he knows how to hunt. He said I should drop by if I’m ever in the area.”

  Sarah scoffed. “A guy you’ve known for all of five minutes says that you should drop by? Isn’t that how you get murdered in those books of yours?”

  “We can’t just go knocking on doors, hoping for the best. At least he has actually extended the invitation.”

  “What do you kn
ow about him?”

  “Not much. He helped me get around a roadblock.”

  “So, you’re saying he could be a psychopath.”

  Anna shrugged. “He could be. But there must be people like us in this world. People who are just trying their best to survive. People who aren’t—” She made a gesture towards the house.

  “Sure,” Sarah said. “And they’ll get robbed and left for dead by the psychopaths.”

  Anna sighed and was about to reply when muffled shouting came from inside the house. “They’re reunited at last,” she muttered, checking their bags were secure. “We’d better leave.”

  Sarah pushed her bike onto the driveway. “And you think Bob will have room for us?”

  “Do we have any other option?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “Let’s try Bob then.”

  Do you think it’s possible to spot evil? Bob had asked her, and Anna had told him that she didn’t know.

  Two weeks later, she’d escaped first Chris and now Nellie and Gus, and she still didn’t know, but Bob had seemed anything but evil.

  And sometimes Anna had to trust her gut.

  14

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  Chris stood on the pavement, peering inside the pharmacy through the shattered shopfront window, glass crunching underneath her shoes as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  Maggie raised her arms and whispered, “I’m not moving, okay? Please don’t hurt me.”

  The handle of the man’s suitcase shook in his grip. With his free hand, he pulled his jumper’s hood down over his forehead as if trying to hide his face. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just need my son’s tablets, and Ron wouldn’t give them to me.”

  “And you killed him?” Maggie asked, incredulous.

  Chris pointed at his suitcase. “That suitcase is bursting at the seams. You’ve taken everything, not just your son’s tablets.” Venom laced her words as her anger stirred at the sight.

  “My son is—”

  “I get it, but one of our boys is ill too, and we need antibiotics. Are there any left?”

  The man shrugged, his knuckles whitening. “I think so. You’re free to check. I’ll be on my way.”

  “Not so fast,” Chris said. “You’re not going anywhere until I’ve found a box of antibiotics.”

  Maggie lowered her arms and nodded in agreement.

  “I was here first.”

  “Technically, Ron was here first,” Maggie spat, then narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you Matt’s son? What would your father say if he saw you like this?”

  “He wouldn’t say anything because he’s dead,” the man replied with a small shrug. “My so—”

  “Why didn’t you just ask? Ron would have given you the inhalers.”

  The man grimaced, and Chris scoffed. “You did ask, didn’t you? And Ron told you he would give you a fair share, and you said you wanted everything, and he said no. Is that why you killed him?”

  “My so—”

  “Yes, of course, your son. Your son is more important than our boy. At least that’s what you think.” Chris stepped over the jagged remains of the shopfront window, careful not to cut herself on the glass. “There are hundreds of children out there. Yours doesn’t get to jump the queue.”

  The man pulled his hood back, his cheeks flushed. He’d shaved his head recently, but there was rough stubble growing on his chin. His eyes were set back under a prominent brow, dark brown and alert. “I’ve only taken what we need. Check the back. I’m not lying.”

  “I didn’t know Matt’s grandson was ill.” Maggie’s wide eyes were glued to the dead pharmacist as if unable to look away. “He never said.”

  “Asthma. I’ve taken his prescription tablets and the inhalers. I haven’t touched anything else. I swear.”

  Maggie approached the counter, reaching for Ron with a trembling hand. She lifted her fingertips to his short grey hair as if afraid to touch him before dropping her hand to her side. “You’ve killed Ron.”

  “He wouldn’t give me more than a month’s worth. Things aren’t going back to normal, and I’m not losing my son because our local pharmacist decided to play Robin Hood and equally distribute all medicine.”

  Chris studied the man’s face. He appeared flustered, agitated, scared. He’d do anything to protect his son, but he didn’t seem happy about it. Like a fearful animal, he was looking to bolt, but Chris stood in his way.

  She didn’t spot any weapons, apart from the pocketknife stuck in the pharmacist’s neck. Blood continued trickling from the wound.

  “How do I know you’re not lying? What if that suitcase is filled with antibiotics and you take off while I’m in the back?”

  “Will you let Chris check before you leave?” Maggie asked.

  He nodded. Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of his head, glistening at his temples. He met Chris’ gaze and held it for a moment before looking away.

  Chris inspected the pharmacy. It looked immaculate. The shelves were stocked with perfumes, soap and moisturiser. Toothbrushes were stacked next to floss. Bottles of shampoo stood neatly arranged in a row.

  People trusted Ron. Trusted him to be fair. Chris couldn’t think of any other reason the place hadn’t been raided.

  She stopped behind the counter, threw a glance into the backroom. A broom stood in a corner. The drawers were closed except for two which appeared empty.

  It looked like he hadn’t been lying and had only taken his son’s medicine.

  And yet, he’d killed the pharmacist—decided his son mattered more than Ron’s property and life. What if he attacked Maggie while Chris was looking for antibiotics?

  What if he ran off, and she opened the drawers and found them empty?

  What if she let him get away and Adam died?

  Chris couldn’t let that happen.

  Her grip around the spray bottle in her pocket tightened, the weight of the axe pulling on her belt.

  If she sprayed cayenne pepper and lemon juice into his eyes, he’d scream and alert anyone nearby. Besides, he’d killed Ron, and Chris couldn’t let him get away with that.

  He deserved more than just pepper spray in his eyes.

  People like him, they’d continue killing others. They’d take, steal and plunder. They’d ransack until someone dared to stop them.

  Why is it up to me to stop him? Chris wondered, then answered her own question: No one else would. Maggie definitely wouldn’t.

  Chris was the only one who would dare to.

  Promise, Tom had said, but people like this man were a danger to her son.

  “I was sad to hear about your father,” Maggie said. “I heard the funeral was lovely. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name?”

  Chris frowned. What was Maggie doing? Was she trying to diffuse the situation?

  The man opened his mouth, mumbled something, swallowing half the words. After a moment of silence he added, “I’m Liam.”

  Chris had heard enough. She reached for her axe and removed it from her belt. Liam looked at her, his eyes widening but before he could react, she swung the tool over his head, crushing his temple with the blunt side.

  He tried to say something, swaying slightly.

  Maggie let out a scream.

  Chris struck him a second time.

  Liam collapsed and hit the floor with a thud, his eyes rolling back into his head.

  Maggie grabbed the axe by its handle, wrestling it from Chris’ hands. “What are you doing?”

  “He killed the pharmacist,” Chris said quietly. “Somebody had to stop him before he killed again.”

  Maggie shook her head, fearful eyes frantically flicking between Liam and Chris.

  “I was worried he’d attack you as soon as I went into the back.”

  Maggie gripped the axe and sank to her knees next to Liam. She patted his cheeks with her free hand.

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.” Chris retrieved her torch from her backpack and s
witched it on to search the drawers.

  Only the inhalers were missing.

  She swallowed and told herself that she couldn’t have known for sure that he wasn’t lying. And just because he wasn’t lying didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have attacked Maggie.

  After all, he’d killed Ron.

  Small sobs came from the front. “I think he’s dead.”

  Chris looked back over her shoulder. Maggie was kneeling by Liam’s side, two fingers pressed against his neck. “I can’t find a pulse.”

  Chris filled her backpack with antibiotics, steroids and painkillers, grabbing as much as she could. When she looked up, Maggie was standing in the doorway. Liam’s suitcase lay open behind her. The axe balanced on top of it. “He only took the inhalers, Chris.” Accusation seeped into Maggie’s voice and it cracked. “You should have checked before attacking him.”

  “He killed the pharmacist.”

  Maggie scowled. “I know, but just because he killed doesn’t mean we—”

  “And what if he’d run off? Left us with nothing to help Adam? What if he’d attacked you?”

  “He stood right there. Unarmed. He waited for you to check.” Maggie crossed her arms in front of her chest. “If you were that worried, you could have used that spray of yours. There was no need to kill him.”

  Chris gave an exasperated sigh. Why was she the only one who understood—

  “You are dangerous.” Maggie scowled.

  A pang of fear struck Chris. You are dangerous. Anna had used those words, had used them to turn Tom against her. Had used them to justify her attempt to poison Chris. “No. I’m not dangerous. I’m just…” She fell silent, desperately searching for the right words.

  Maggie raised an eyebrow. “You’re just what?”

  “I’m trying to protect your family. Adam needs antibiotics. He will die without them.”

  “Liam died because of you,” Maggie said. “And what about his asthmatic son? Who will look after his son now?”

  “I don’t know, Maggie. His son isn’t part of your family. Adam is.”

  Maggie rubbed her face with her hands. Tears glistened in her eyes. “How is that fair? Who are you to decide that Liam’s life is worth less than Adam’s?” Frustration oozed from her words. “Who is telling Liam’s mother that he had to die because of Adam? Who is telling Liam’s son that his dad died because of Adam?”