by Adam Millard
“Your trousers?” Tom was intrigued; for a moment he had forgotten why they were all here.
So, Wood went through the story again, this time for Tom’s benefit. How Wood had placed a bet with an old friend from the force that Marcus ‘The Banger’ Berry would knock out Reginald King within six rounds back in a 2008 championship fight. Tom remembered that fight well; King had made it all the way to the tenth before Marcus landed a great right hook on his glass jaw, putting him to sleep before he even hit the canvas. Wood had honoured the bet, removed his trousers, and wheeled himself through the city centre with nothing but a traffic cone to cover his modesty. “You should have seen the way people were looking at me!” Wood said, tears now streaming from his eyes. “But, you know, the great thing about being a cripple is that no one says shit. I could have smothered myself in chocolate sauce and sung the national anthem and still got looks of sympathy.”
Now Tom was laughing hysterically, too. Hysterically because they were all terrified? Petrified of what was to come? What could come any moment? It didn’t matter. They were laughing, and it was as if someone had turned a gauge to release the pressure. There they were, just three men, laughing out loud, tears streaming down their faces, and it felt good. It felt good because, just for a moment, there was no Ice Cream Man, no Ghuul, no Frederick fucking White. There was only there and then.
And then, as quickly as it all began, it was over with four words from Marcus.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?”
The smile dropped from Tom’s face, and Wood’s wasn’t far behind. “We’re not fucked,” Tom said. “We’re together, and that’s got to stand for something.”
“We were together back then,” Marcus said, nursing his brandy. “That didn’t help us stop that thing from taking Ryan.”
“That was different,” Wood said. It was the first thing he’d uttered in over three minutes; that was how long they had laughed for. He was serious once again. Deadly serious.
“How was that different?” Marcus asked.
“We didn’t know it was coming.” Wood closed the book, seemingly satisfied with what he had gleaned from its pages for one evening. “Right?” He looked up; the question was aimed at Tom.
“Right,” Tom said.
And then, “Right,” added Marcus.
It wasn’t much, but it was all they had.
TWENTY-TWO
October 31st, 2016
St. George’s Hospital
Tooting, London
Ghuuuuuuul…
Luke opened his eyes, expecting to see the dim incandescence of the Bay 11 light over his bed. It wasn’t there. Instead, there was only darkness, but when Luke’s sleepy-eyed vision cleared, he could make out tiny white pinpricks. Stars. That was when he realised he was outside. Outside and lying on his back, staring up.
“What the…” He pushed up onto his elbows, saw that he was lying in a field, a field with no borders, no fences, nothing but sodden grass all around him. He clambered to his feet, being careful not to slip on the muddy pasture beneath, which squelched noisily—as if it had recently rained hard and long. Staring down at his body, he saw that he was still dressed in his hospital gown, only now it was filthy, bloody, torn and shredded as if some long-clawed creature had been working on him as he slept.
Slept?
That was it. This was another dream, another vivid, fucked-up nightmare courtesy of everyone’s favourite neighbourhood Ice Cream Man. Any minute now he would appear, hiss a few chilling sentences, make a couple of threats, and then Luke would awaken back at the hospital, where he would sit in his chair, reluctant to sleep again for the rest of the night, terrified and eager to get the fuck out of St. George’s before it was too late.
Luke took one step forward, and then a second. His legs were just as tired, just as sore, as they were in the real world, but at least here—wherever ‘here’ was—he didn’t have the inconvenience of a drip-stand. The grass was unkempt, hilly in places and dipped in others, and so pulling that cumbersome machine across the field didn’t bear thinking about.
Just then, twenty feet in front of him, a spotlight came down, its source some invisible thing up in the sky. Luke started, for it was the last thing you’d expect to see in the middle of a field, dream or no dream. And there—oh! Of course! There she was again! —sitting on her knees in the pool of light, covered in mud and blood and wearing nothing to keep her warm, was Lydia.
“You’re not her!” Luke yelled, his voice echoing around the field somehow. “You’re not Lydia, you FUCK!”
The girl—his pumpkin, sweetie, princess, beautiful, darling—slowly lifted her head. Luke saw the grin first; black drool seeped from her mouth, hung from her chin like filthy cobwebs. He saw the dark pits where her eyes should have been next, and even though he knew this was just a nightmare, a construct designed to upset him, to break him down, he thought, That’s what she’ll look like. That’s what Lydia will look like when he’s done with her!
“No!” Luke screamed. “No, you can’t have her!”
In a voice which was so plangent it caused every wet blade of grass in the field to vibrate, the thing sitting in the pool of light said, “Sssssshhhhhhh, Lucasssssss. It’ssss passsst her bedtiiiiiime…”
“You can’t take her from me,” Luke said, not realising he was moving forward until he almost slipped on the mud. “Choose somebody else, you fucker! Leave her out of this!” He was close enough to the thing wearing his daughter’s skin to see that she was shivering. Wet and shivering when she should have been home in bed.
It’s not her, you silly asshole!
It’s not her!
“Then sssstop me…” hissed the creature. “Sssstop me. Ssssaaaave her…”
Luke’s right hand suddenly felt heavy, so heavy it almost unbalanced him, and when he looked down, he saw that he was holding an axe.
Ssssstop meeee…
“I’ll stop you!” Luke said, and began to run toward the column of light and the target at its base. The creature’s ungodly laugh seemed to come at him from all sides. Sulphur, vanilla, methane, cookie-dough, death, sprinkles; its breath swarmed around him like so many blowflies, waiting for him to ‘Lie down and die already so we can crawl up inside you and go to work…’
Luke brought the axe up as he reached the edge of the light, and as he stepped into it, the creature dropped its head, accepting, ready to die? Ceding defeat? No.
The axe made an almost cartoonish WHOOSH! sound as it split the air, and then it stuck in the top of the creature’s head—THUT! —and would go no further.
Luke was still screaming when the body (it’s not her! It’s not her! It’s not her!) fell forward and blood began to puddle around it, staining the grass crimson. And when Luke looked—still sobbing and screaming and begging himself to wake up—he saw that the entire field was now blood red. A carpet of seeping flesh with him and the dead creature—
it’s not her
—at its centre.
Then there came a clap, and another, and Luke turned just a moment too late, for the third clap came from behind, from the direction he had just been facing. This time when he turned, he came face-to-face with a slow-clapping Karen.
“Well done!” said his wife, only it wasn’t Karen. It couldn’t be. “You finally managed to kill our daughter. So proud of you. And here I was thinking you were nothing but a fuck-up, a complete waste of space. How wrong I was, huh?”
Razorblades filled Luke’s throat. He couldn’t speak—could barely breathe—and so he stood there, mouth flapping open and shut as if he were a creature not destined for dry land.
“On the bright side,” Karen went on, “at least Christmas will be cheap this year. You were always saying how she didn’t appreciate all that stuff we bought her, how she only used it once or twice and then, poof! Forgotten about. Think of all that money we’ll save! And we can finally move out of London! Yes! There’s no need for us to stay here, now. It’s not like we’ve got a daughter who
needs a good school. We can pack up and move to the country, just like you always wanted. Good job, Daddy! Good job, indeed!”
Luke shut his eyes, prayed that when he opened them the demon-Karen would be gone and he would be back in his room at St. George’s.
It’s just a dream.
It’s just a dream.
It’s just a—
“I’M COMING, LUKE!” Luke opened his eyes as something wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze tight. The mouth next to his ear (sprinkles and acid and sorbet and gasoline and mallow and cancer) opened up wide and warm breath buffeted his face; the demon-Karen was right next to him now, lifting him up from the crimson grass with veritable ease. “YOUR FRIENDSSS THINK THEY CAN SSSTOP ME, BUT THEY CAN’T…”
Wake up, Luke. Wake up, Luke. Wake up, Luke.
“Your friend Ryan begged me to ssset him free,” the demon-Karen hissed. Luke kicked and struggled, but it was no use; his feet were too far away from the creature, too far from the ground. “You should have seen the tearsss. OH! Such tearsss as he pissed his pantsss and, for decadesss, pleaded with me to ssset him free.”
(jam and cordite and treacle and defecation and chocolate and gangrene and…)
“He still suffersss,” whispered the creature. “Still pleadsss and criesss and soilsss himself.”
Luke didn’t know how much more of this he could take, but he knew that if he were to die here in the crimson field, he would never regain consciousness in his hospital room. He didn’t know how he knew that. He just did. And the Ice Cream Man/Demon-Karen must have been able to read his mind, for the next words it whisper-hissed were:
“Oh, you aren’t going to die here tonight, Luke. Where’sss the fun in that?” The creature’s grip loosened from his throat, and then he was on his knees, coughing and spluttering and gasping for air that never came.
And that was how he woke, only instead of the crimson grass—stained with the blood of his daughter—there was cold, hard tiles, and instead of his own hands wrapped around his neck it was an IV line. “Holy fuck!” he said, quickly unwrapping the line. “Holy FUCK!”
He climbed to his feet, using the bed to his left for support. Beyond the small window the ward was under night-staff operation. All was relatively quiet; Luke was surprised no one had heard him cursing.
Sitting down on the bed and pouring himself a glass of water from the clear jug on his bedside table, he managed to calm himself down. I can’t do this. I can’t just lie in here while that fucker’s out there. And now there was a threat against his family, a clear message of intent.
The Ice Cream Man was going after his daughter.
Lydia.
That was how Luke would suffer, how his world would end without the Ice Cream Man so much as laying a finger upon him.
Luke pulled the IV from the back of his hand—it hurt like hell but bled very little—and began to dress.
He was getting out of St. George’s tonight, or would at least die trying.
TWENTY-THREE
October 31st, 2016
Havering, London
Luke didn’t care what time it was, he hammered the front door as if he were trying to bust it off its hinges. “Mom! Dad! Open up!” Dad? His dad would not open up. It would be Dave, and Dave would be pissed off by the three a.m. wake-up call from his woman’s psychologically damaged son. There would be a fight, despite Luke looking like he’d already been hit by a truck, and Dave would slam the door shut, leaving him to limp-roll down the drive, bleeding and whining and wishing he’d never bothered.
“Dave! Mom!” He hammered again three more times, and it was on the second thump that the door began to click from the inside. Luke took a step back, grabbed hold of his side—his ribs felt as if they were splintered and tearing at his insides like sharpened chicken bones—and took a deep, painful breath.
“Luke?” Dave was dressed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, the kind Roger Moore wore in Live and Let Die. “What the fuck… what happened to you. You look like shit?”
“Look, Dave, sorry to barge in like this. I know it’s late, but I really need some help.”
“You’re right there, mate,” Dave said, taking a step outside and pulling the door to behind him. “I don’t know what this is about, but your mother’s had a helluva bad night. She’s got a really bad abscess, and she’s taken a lot of painkillers just so she can get some sleep—”
“I don’t need to speak to Mom,” Luke said. “I need to borrow your car.”
“What?”
“Your car, Dave,” Luke said, motioning to the TR7 sitting on the driveway. “I have to get back to my wife and kid, tonight. Something terrible is going to happen to them, and I—”
“What’s going on, Luke?” Dave asked, arms folded across his chest, bald head glistening in the moonlight. Standing there in his dressing gown, he looked about half as intimidating as he had the first time they’d met.
“Please, Dave,” Luke said. “I know you don’t know me, and this is all a little fucked up, but you have to trust me, okay? I’ll bring the car back first thing in the morning, I swear. Look?” He removed his watch—a not-inexpensive Larsson and Jennings Karen had gifted him last Christmas—and held it out for Dave to inspect. “Collateral. I promise, I won’t put a scratch on her.”
After quickly appraising the watch, Dave sighed. “Wait here.” He went inside, and when he returned, he was holding a set of car keys. “She’s a good runner,” he said, “but if you park on a hill, make sure you leave her in gear. The handbrake doesn’t work.”
He handed the keys to Luke, but when Luke went to hand him the watch, he took a step back, shaking his head.
“What kind of an asshole do you think I am?”
“I don’t,” Luke said. He slipped the watch back onto his wrist and fastened it. “Thank you, Dave. First thing in the morning, I promise.”
But Dave was already turning, yawning. He raised a hand (goodbye, Luke, now fuck off) and went back inside, easing the door shut behind him.
Luke ran for the car.
* * *
October 31st, 2016
Luton, Bedfordshire
It never crossed Luke’s mind that Karen would be angry with him; never once struck him, as he drove for almost an hour to the family home, that she would consider his sudden arrival an inconvenient intrusion, but that was precisely how it felt now, sitting in the living-room while she paced back and forth in front of the fire.
“So, let me get this straight, Luke,” she said, her voice tremulous and full of sleep. “You discharged yourself from hospital—which, by the way, was a stupid thing to do in your condition—borrowed a car from a complete stranger, and then drove all this way because you thought Lydia and me were in trouble?”
Luke didn’t care that she was annoyed with him, could even take the shrill of her voice without wincing, because he was back to protect them. “I didn’t discharge myself,” he said. Only because there was no one around to get the ball rolling, but he kept that part to himself. “And I don’t expect you to understand, but—"
“I don’t understand, Luke, because it doesn’t make any sense.” She glanced toward the living-room door, which sat ajar, and the next time she spoke it was softer quieter, so as not to wake Lydia. “This thing, this guy that took your friend when you were twelve-years-old, he’s not going to come back for you, Luke. He’s not going to take Lydia away, because he’s all up here.” She tapped the side of her head.
“Okay,” Luke said. “So humour me. I know it’s difficult to believe, but this thing is real, Karen. It’s real, and it’s coming back. Didn’t Marcus tell you why he was down here? Why he was driving around Havering when I hit him?”
Karen shrugged. “Said something about scouting venues for a comeback tour. His father was doing the same in the north.”
“Well, he was lying, Karen,” Luke said, a sudden pain stabbing at his chest. Perhaps it was a bad idea to leave the hospital without letting anyone know. “Marcus was down
here because that thing from when we were kids attacked him, it attacked him the same way it attacked me. I didn’t see Lydia in bed that night; I saw the Ice Cream Man. It took over our daughter, because that’s what it does. It gets to you through other people. I would never lay a finger on her, Karen, and you know that, but that night… I thought that sonofabitch was back… and I thought it was going to hurt her.” He swallowed, but his mouth was absolutely dry and made a strange clicking sound as he talked. “Halloween, Karen. That’s when it comes. Everything that happens now, everything that’s already happened, is leading up to that, and the only way it can get to me is through Lydia.”
Standing there, his wife looked like a stranger to him. Cold, distant, she could have been any woman from any town in the country. “I’m going back to bed, Luke,” she said as an exhale. “Please, go back to the hospital. You should never have left in the first place, and you’re no good to us in that state.”
“I’m not leaving you—”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do, Luke.” She placed her hands on the sides of her head, as if she couldn’t even believe this conversation was taking place. “If Lydia wakes up in the morning and you’re still here, she’s going to freak out, and I don’t want that. I don’t think you want that.”
“But at the hospital?” Luke said. “You told me everything was going to be okay? That we could fix this and be a family again.”
“And I meant it,” Karen said, lowering her hands. “I meant it, Luke, but it’s going to take a lot longer than a week, and I can’t do this while you’re not yourself.”
“I am myself—”
“We’re fine!” Karen snapped. “Lydia and me, we’re fine, and we’re going to be fine until you’re better, but you have to go back to the hospital. You have to get right before we can have this conversation again.”
Luke deflated; this was not how this was meant to go. He hadn’t expected open arms from his wife, but the last thing he’d considered was that she didn’t want him there at all, despite what he was telling her about the Ice Cream Man.
