This affair was different, and the difference was somehow menacing to him. It threatened his comfortable, secure, untroubled bachelor world. At the age of thirty four, he had survived his twenties with barely a scrape. A few flesh wounds maybe, he told himself with a smile. There had been some serious skirmishes in the early days, but these had served as important lessons, alerting him to future pitfalls. He had seen his friends all eventually succumb to the temptation of marriage. Why, for fuck’s sake, in this day and age? Who the hell needs the legal stranglehold of marriage? Was it, he wondered, that long established middle class urge for respectability, the temptation of conformity which follows the standard period of wild oating? One must obey the unwritten rules of marrying—or shacking up together at least and then procreating. Children—the extra shackle. Indeed a few of his friends had married, divorced and like some marital kamikaze were about to do it again.
David saw marriage as an unnecessary intrusion and a complication. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he was too selfish to share his life with someone else on a permanent basis. Love could never be that great. In his naïve salad days, there had been what he supposed had been real love in his life, but not lately, not within vivid memory. Besides, he had been moderately successful as a writer in television and his emotions and nervous spirit had been poured into that, leaving behind a somewhat cold shell. Perhaps that is unfair. David was not cold. Kate could never have been attracted to a cold man. Rather, he was like the scripts he wrote: warm, lively and intriguing on the surface, but rather empty beneath. What had Rob Moore said of him? 'A quick brain and a cold heart.' Rob Moore was no fool.
But David did care for Kate. At least he thought he did. His feelings for her were new to him and he was unable to give them a name—or he was too frightened to. He was concerned for her, certainly. Dammit, she gave him reason! And maybe in his own way, he did love her. For who are we to define what love is for others? We do, of course, because arrogance knows no bounds, and yet we are wrong.
It would be true to say, however, that if David could now have the choice, he would have preferred never to have met Kate. But he had.
It was eighteen months ago now.
They had met in the television studio canteen. An actor friend of his was doing a drama with Kate and he introduced them.
Boy meets girl.
She had a lovely, haunting face. He adored her lips: they were wide and fleshy.
And from the first desultory lunch-time conversation, feebly supported by the shaky timbers of polite platitudes, it had all begun. Another meeting, by chance, this time on their own told them they were interested in each other. It was as simple and instant as that. He was fascinated by her quiet intelligent sexuality; she by his lively warmth. He was so unlike Michael.
One night after work he invited her for a drink. She accepted. It was an innocent, friendly invitation from one colleague to another. But they both knew that it meant more than this. They knew a significant barrier had been crossed.
David found her irresistible. She was slim and elegant with a face that radiated sensitivity and a kind of refined sensuality. He realised then that he had desired her the instant that they had met.
Initially the conversation centred on their television projects: layered small talk. It was, David mused, like an adolescent charade. ‘How's it going? The show?’ he asked, cradling his wine glass.
Kate wrinkled her nose. It was an eloquent gesture, but she qualified it. ‘OK. It's a bit heavy in the emotion department. I'm constantly trying to tone it down while Jack... Jack Carey, you know the director...?’
David nodded and smiled.
‘Well, he keeps wanting to push me over the top.’
‘Perhaps he was expecting a Lady Macbeth.’
‘I think he's done too many commercials and forgotten what real life is like.’
They both grinned at each other and stared gently into their drinks. The inconsequentialities were drying up.
How long was this trivial tittle tattle going to last, David asked himself. Was it up to him to strip away the formalities and get to the point? They both deserved, and in fact needed, more honesty. Surely she could feel the undercurrents, the sexual stirrings below the still waters of the conventional chatter. It wasn't just his imagination, was it? He fancied her and she would not be here swilling wine if the feeling was not mutual, would she? A man and woman, almost strangers, did not meet like this unless there was an ulterior motive. He couldn’t have got it wrong, could he?
‘Thanks for coming for a drink with me,’ he said softly, without looking at her. There was a pause and her lips parted into a broad smile, but when she saw that he was not smiling, it quickly faded.
‘We're being foolish aren't we?’ he said.
‘Are we?’
‘Playing games like this.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Polite games,’ he reaffirmed.
‘I don't think I know what you mean.’
He gave her a soft grin and a gentle shake of the head. ‘And you're still playing. Does that mean, Kate, that you daren't admit it even to yourself.’
Her eyes darkened and flickered with what seemed irritation. She placed her glass down on the table in a sharp deliberate fashion, a splash of red wine slipping over the rim. Ah, I've gone too far, too quickly, David told himself. You've blown it, boy.
‘I'm tired, David. I have an early call in the morning. I think I'd better be going.’ She made to get up and leave, but instinctively he grabbed her hand and pulled her back. It had come to the crunch now and he didn't know what to say. All that came into his mind was second hand dialogue, the sort he wrote for his soap operas. But it was Kate who spoke.
‘I'm sorry, David, it's my fault. You needn't say anything. I know.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I feel it, too. But I was wrong to come. I wasn't thinking straight. We must... forget it.’
‘But if the feeling is mutual?’
‘There are other considerations.’
He knew of the marriage: that didn't put him off. He'd had married girlfriends before. They were often the best. Anyway, he'd heard that Kate's marriage was rather shaky. Apparently her husband was a bit of a bastard.
She got up to leave.
‘Kate.’
She turned briefly.
‘I'm sorry,’ he said.
‘So am I.’ The words were a whisper; and then she was gone.
***
The headmaster fiddled with his pencil, tapping erratically on the desk. Doctor Anderton waited patiently for a response. None came. Anderton gave a polite cough. The head glanced in his direction, screwing his face into a prolonged contortion, but yet he did not speak.
Anderton repeated himself. ‘I really think the parents ought to be informed.’
‘Yes. Yes. So you said,’ the head muttered with great irritation. ‘But tonight?’
‘I am afraid so. There's no certainty which way the boy will go. His condition could deteriorate rapidly overnight.’
Holding the pencil between his two hands as though testing its strength, the head gazed out of the window. From the night-blackened panes, his own reflection stared back at him like a disembodied skull. ‘As I understand it, Doctor, the boy's in some sort of self-induced trance and will…’ He turned to face Anderton. ‘And will, we hope, come out of it naturally. Surely, in such a state his condition cannot worsen?’
Anderton allowed himself a sigh. ‘The coma has, I believe, been self-induced by hysteria and will run its course with the boy regaining consciousness naturally. However, this is a dark area and there are no certainties. There is no assurance in this matter. I really believe that he needs specialised attention and the parents ought to be informed.’
The pencil snapped.
‘Very well. If you organise the medical side, I will ring the boy's parents.’ The head made no attempt to disguise his irritation.
‘Parent, actually,’ said Matron as she moved into the pool of brigh
ter light spilled by the head's table lamp. ‘His father is dead.’
***
Michael. Michael. Michael. She made a haven out of his name. Here she lounged, stretched, melted, becoming something other than herself. She felt devoured, encompassed by the dark and it was good. But not yet complete. Her body ached in the damp void, anticipating, desiring the contact. She needed it.
‘Michael’. She swooped on the breath of her cry, her mouth dry with expectation, her body throbbing with excitement. She licked her lips, a shining tongue trailing a saliva path across them.
Her body tensed, offering itself to the presence.
***
Doctor Anderton entered the sick room. It was illuminated by one bright bedside lamp which threw grotesque shadows across the high flaky ceiling. Matron was gazing down at the boy with an expression which contained a mixture of shock and concern.
‘Everything all right? Has there been any change?’ Anderton asked tentatively.
Matron stared blankly at him for a few moments.
‘What is it?’ he asked, realising that something was wrong.
‘This,’ she said, quietly, pulling back the bedclothes from the inert form of the eight year old boy. Anderton saw, protruding from the boy's pyjamas, a large, mature and fully erect penis.
***
David's car scrunched up the gravel drive to a halt. He leapt out and made for the cottage, when his attention was arrested by some movement in the front garden. In an area of suffused yellow illumination created by the light from the kitchen window, he saw what appeared to be two figures on the lawn. They were close together almost merging into one.
Moving nearer, he thought they must be fighting. He was just about to call out when the words died in his throat. With a shudder of fear, he realised one of the figures was Kate.
***
When it came, it was cold. Deathly cold. The thrust was fierce; there was no gentleness. But then there never had been.
She gasped in pain. But it was good. Oh, it was good.
Good.
Good.
More.
Michael, more. More. Michael, more. More! More! More!
***
‘Kate!’ David found his voice. ‘Kate!’ he cried, her name echoing in the misty darkness.
***
‘Fuck,’ said the little boy in bed.
***
The numbness of throbbing pain, the pain that gnaws away inside, was just about to consume Kate when she heard her name floating out on the breeze. Was that sound real? Had she conjured it from her subconscious? But there it was again, more distinct—and yet, paradoxically, indistinct—muffled, protected from clarity. By the fog? The fog. Turning her head slowly to face the direction from which her name came, she scanned her surroundings like a drunk trying to recognise friends' faces at a party. Gradually she was able to make out David's vague shape at the top of the garden behind her. With a struggle, she managed to bring his name to mind, almost as a test of recognition. And then in a fragile whisper she spoke his name out loud.
That was the release. Warmth flooded back. The tension, the ache, the unreal, heightened senses faded in an instant.
***
As David rushed through the swirls of fog towards the agonised face of Kate, he realised he had been wrong. There was no one else there.
By the time he reached her, she had collapsed on to the soggy turf, a terrified grin marking her face.
THREE
Another part of the forest.
Rob Moore stirred. The blue moonlight fell across his tired face, forehead frowning in unpleasant dreams. Fiona, thin, sexless, Fiona lay stiffly by his side, unmoved by dreams or the moonlight. Sleep did not refresh Fiona, but provided her with the most treasured moments of the day: the time when she was completely unassailable, utterly private behind those closed lids and her thick cold skin.
Rob awoke to his dream.
Shadows rippled along the walls of the room, which in fact wasn't a room any longer but a pale blue seascape. The bed was afloat, shifting gently to the motion of the lapping water. This seemed less strange to Rob than the fact that he was now alone in the bed: Fiona had gone. Where? Overboard? Had she slipped unnoticed into the warm blue waters? There was no sense of loss or panic, just mild curiosity. Casually, he trailed his hand in the silky water, its warmth filtering into the rest of his body.
How relaxing.
How soporific.
The body surrendered to sleep. But one can't go to sleep in a dream, can one? A lazy smile touched his face as he considered this anomaly, his eyelids fluttering heavily. Why worry? One could drift on like this for ever, gently rocking... the warmth oozing... so soothing... Total calm.
And then...!
And then from below the warm, azure water, a thick, slimy hand took hold of his and gripped it tightly. In cold shock, Rob gave a cry of alarm. He gazed in horror at the claw-like fingers that dug into his flesh. He squirmed in heart-stopping panic, while the bed rocked, water spilling over the sides. He tried to pull his hand free from the cold clammy grasp of... of that thing below the surface. He felt his own fingers stiffen and go limp, but they did not escape from that terrible grip. Then he realised with horror that he was being pulled gradually towards the very edge of the bed, towards the warm, blue water...
With heart stopping terror, he realised what was happening. The thing means to pull me under—to drown me! The thought thundered in his brain.
He writhed on the bed, tugging, pulling, straining to free his hand. To no avail. Slowly, inexorably, Rob felt his body slither nearer the water... nearer the thing beneath its gently undulating surface.
He opened his mouth to scream but no sound issued forth. Fool! he told himself. This is a dream: you can't scream. And even if you can, who can help you in a dream? But if this is a dream, why the hell am I so terrified?
He now lay face down on the bed, his free hand grasping the edge of the mattress, while the whole of his other arm and shoulder were disappearing under the water—the warm, blue, salty water. He knew now there was no escape, there was no hope... He was doomed. Soon he would vanish for ever into the depths of his dream ocean. The water lapped against his face and he tasted the saltiness on his tongue. His body now felt numb as the underwater thing tugged harder.
He could not resist, could not fight against what he now realised was the inevitable. Rob Moore's head slipped beneath the waves and there he came face to face with the creature that had dragged him down to its saltwater embrace. There with white grinning visage, wrinkled with prolonged submersion and eyeless as a skull was a face he knew.
From her cold, barren, dreamless sleep, Fiona Moore was assailed by the screams of a madman. As consciousness propelled her back into the world, she had a vague impression of seeing her husband lying half out of bed and calling out someone's name at the top of his voice.
***
David had only just laid Kate on the sofa in front of the fire when the telephone rang.
‘Damn! Now the bloody thing works,’ he growled. For some moments he stood transfixed, caught between the need to attend to Kate and answer the insistent ring. Decisively, he strode to the phone and switched it off. Like a blessing, silence descended on the cottage. David shivered involuntarily. And then with speed, he grabbed a blanket, a bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses and returned to the sofa. Covering Kate's still inert form with the blanket, he gazed down at her pale, beautiful features and once more felt that strange tingling within him, a tenderness for her which he could not fully explain. He bent and kissed her fully on her cool lips. She stirred, eyelids fluttering, mouth moving. He kissed her again: this time she responded, and he felt her arms slip from the blanket and around his shoulders. The kiss finished, she pulled away from him and, with sleepy eyes, she tried to focus on his face.
‘David?’ she said softly, tentatively.
The note of surprise and uncertainty in her voice chilled him.
‘Yes,’ he said gent
ly.
‘Oh.’
She pulled herself up on the sofa. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You tell me. I arrived to find you having some sort of fainting fit in the garden.’
‘The garden,’ she said and looked beyond him. ‘The garden. Yes, I was in the garden.’ She closed her eyes and shuddered as though some terrible memory came to haunt her mind. Suddenly she leaned forward, throwing her arms around him. ‘Oh, David, hold me...’
David did as she asked, his heart chilled. She was frightened and that meant only one thing: Michael.
***
Timothy Barlow sat up in bed. Although it was dark, he knew he wasn't in his dormitory. Where was he? His head felt strange—dry as though all the liquid had been drained out of it. He tried to pull himself out of bed, but he found he was too weak. With a moan, he fell back on his pillow.
At the far end of the room, a solid block of yellow light slid into the darkness as the door opened. Caught in the doorway was a bulky silhouette. With grim determination, Tim raised himself on one elbow. His head throbbed. The dark shape advanced towards him, silently and with unnatural speed.
‘Dad?’ he asked softly. ‘Dad?’
He sensed a cool hand on his feverish forehead and the strong smell of stale tobacco.
‘Don't worry, Timothy, everything's going to be all right.’
The voice was familiar. It squeezed its way into his consciousness, lubricating the dry convolutions of his brain.
‘Just lie back and rest for now,’ came the soothing tones again. From a thousand years ago, he recognised it. It was the voice of Matron.
And then he remembered more.
Not everything but he remembered feeling ill and the cold sensation that had ebbed through his body. He remembered the strange ache between his legs. What did it all mean?
The Darkness Rising Page 2
