Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  “Anything new?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He opened the menu and accessed his Cloud account, picking the hallway camera and scanning through the last hour of footage. Sure enough there he was, standing by the door, the moment of revelation when he’d figured out his timing could be wrong. Then all of them speeding from the house. There was a period of nothing, blitzed through in fast forward, then somebody appeared at the door.

  Blake slowed it, turning the phone to Julia so they could both watch as their front door opened and a face peeked in. It was the younger guy from Adam’s place, the eager teenager who had sat on his legs while he was being stabbed. He stepped inside, moving towards the living room first and vanishing off screen. Somebody else stepped in after him, a guy that Blake didn’t recognise who wafted his hands in front of his face, coughing. He moved straight for the kitchen door.

  Go on, Blake said. Do it.

  He watched the man reach out and push the door. There was a flicker of static, a bright flash, then nothing.

  “Fuck,” said Julia.

  Blake checked the timestamp. This had been twelve minutes ago.

  “Oh shit, Blake, if the house has gone up then it’s gonna be all over the news. Mum and dad will see it.”

  He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Give it,” she said, waggling her fingers. He passed her the phone and watched her dial her mum’s number with her free hand, stroking Connor’s hair nervously.

  “Yeah, mum, I don’t have much time to talk,” she said, her words muffled as she chewed her nail. “We had a gas leak, the house has… I’m not sure, but there was an explosion. I think… I don’t know. Mum, I just wanted to let you know we’re okay. Don’t go there, it’s dangerous… No, thanks, we’ll stay at a friend’s… He’s fine, mum. I’ve got to go, I’ll call you later. Love you.”

  She hung up, opened her mouth to speak, and the phone bleeped, so loud that everyone in the restaurant turned to look. It almost spilled from Julia’s fingers but she managed to hold onto it, passing it over.

  A new text was waiting.

  You’re forgetting who I am, Blake. I see everything. I see you.

  “We should go,” he said, the room suddenly ten degrees cooler. He struggled to his feet, Julia’s arm under his, helping him. He picked up the carrier bag in one hand and took the coffee in the other. Julia led the way to the door, and he saw the exact moment that she staggered back, her coffee spilling from her fingers. He saw the exact moment she cried out.

  The devil stood there, silhouetted against the light from outside, a darkness that seemed too big to be human, that seemed to radiate outwards, filling the restaurant. The trickle of people who sat in his shadow looked at him with alarm in their eyes, as if they could sense that he was something more than them, something rotten, something bad.

  The devil’s eyes were two pockets of pitch inside shadow, impossible to make out. But somehow they still burned right into Blake’s skull, right into his soul.

  The man lifted a hand, slowly, and pointed a too-long finger at Blake. The air around him seemed to shimmer, as if daylight was forcing itself to turn away, to back off. For an awful moment, the whole world shuddered, slipping free from its mountings. Blake listed, and even though he was on the other side of the room, even though the noise from the restaurant was surely too loud, he heard the man’s whisper as if it was carried into his ear on a needle.

  “I see you.”

  Fifty-Four

  Run.

  The man blazed darkness like a black hole, his gravity too powerful, pulling Blake in and holding him tight. His face cracked in half, peeling open to reveal that mechanical smile—too big, too sharp. His eyes were roiling pits that seemed to overflow with glee. That finger pointed right at Blake, the man’s arm too long—as if it could stretch the length between them in a heartbeat and wrap itself around Blake’s throat.

  “I see you,” he said again.

  Oh god, run.

  The man took a step, then another, powering himself across the restaurant. People moved out of his way like iron filings from a magnet, scattered like they knew what might happen if they got caught in his path. He carried his darkness with him like a storm cloud, making it seem as if night had fallen outside.

  Blake felt a hand on his arm, fingers digging into his flesh. He winced, turning to see Julia, her face ashen. Connor was screaming as if even he could sense the monster that was coming for them.

  Run, he thought again, but it was only when Julia moved that Blake was shaken free of his paralysis. He almost slipped on her spilled coffee as he bolted after her, straight for the counter. Everyone in the restaurant was on their feet, caught up in their panic. The devil was ten feet away now and moving like a freight train. Somebody screamed as he thumped into a table, his huge, hulking body moving like a tide of black water.

  “This way!” Julia yelled. She was running past the counter, past the bubbling chip fryers, heading for the door at the back.

  Blake followed mindlessly. He could hear the man’s feet pounding behind them, knew it would only be seconds before he felt those dirty fingers around his mouth, pulling him back. He grabbed the machete out of the bag, wondering if he should stand his ground and let Julia escape. But his body wouldn’t let him, driving him past a stockroom and walk-in fridge, past the huge bins and out through the back doors.

  “Come on!” Julia screamed as she sprinted over a patch of overgrown grass into the B&Q car park. She almost ripped the car’s door off its hinges, throwing Connor into his seat and frantically strapping him in—scooping Doof back into the car with her foot when the little dog made a break for it. Blake hobbled to the passenger door, climbing in and looking back. The man had slowed to a halt on the other side of the car park, his hands by his sides, his nostrils flaring, his Cheshire Cat grin the brightest thing in sight.

  Blake’s phone bleeped and he took it out, reading the message as Julia slammed her door and started the engine.

  I see you, Blake.

  Another message flashed on screen—even though the man held no phone.

  I smell your fear.

  Bleep.

  You cannot escape.

  Bleep.

  I am the darkness at the end of the world, I am the night that will devour the day, I am the Fallen One, and I will bring you to hell with me.

  The car lurched as Julia floored it. She wrestled with the wheel, spinning them around and roaring towards the exit.

  Bleep.

  Your time is almost up, Blake.

  They screeched onto the road, Connor screaming.

  Bleep.

  Be ready for me.

  “Julia, stop.”

  They were doing eighty on the dual carriageway, Julia ducking in and out of traffic, their car coming frighteningly close to shunting other vehicles off the road. Blake wasn’t even sure how much time had passed.

  “Stop.”

  Julia cut in front of a lorry and its horn split the air. Blake put his hand on her arm, squeezing gently, and her head twisted around to see him. She didn’t look like Julia. She didn’t look human. Her face was a mask of fear, her eyes bulging.

  “Julia, you’re going to kill us, please.”

  Connor screamed, his feet drumming the seat. Doof was howling his head off from where he’d fallen in the footwell.

  “They’re gone.” He didn’t know that for sure, but he had to say something. “Come on, Jules, please.”

  She eased her foot off the accelerator and Blake felt the car slow. Julia put a hand to her mouth, then she pulled the car onto the hard shoulder and slammed on the brakes. For a second they skidded out into traffic again, juddering hard, then she steered it back and stopped.

  Blake rested his head against the chair, swallowing his heart back into his chest. He took Julia’s hand but she snatched it away, clutching it to her stomach. Her whole body was shaking, and she was whispering something, something Blake couldn’t make out until he le
aned in.

  “What is he? What is he?”

  Connor’s squeals were a drill in the flesh of Blake’s brain, the kid squirming in his chair and stretching his chubby fingers out to his mum. Julia didn’t respond, she curled into herself like she was trying to shrink right out of the world.

  “Hey,” Blake said. “Julia.”

  He reached over and took her hand again, pulling, her resistance like rigor mortis until she eventually gave in. He drew her close and held her. Traffic exploded past, rocking the car, but they sat like that for an eternity until she gradually unfurled, loosening, the tremors ebbing away. She turned to Blake, wiping her eyes.

  “What is he?” she said again.

  Just a man, he thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. His imagination replayed the way darkness seemed to pour off him, the way each step he’d taken had carried him ten feet, the way he’d texted Blake without even using a phone.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone, turning it off so that no new messages would get through.

  “He tracked us,” he said as he dropped the phone into the cup holder. “That’s all. He used the phone to find out where we were.”

  She shook her head.

  “He didn’t look real, Blake. He didn’t look real. What are we going to do?”

  “We stick to the plan.”

  “It won’t work,” she said. “He’s not…” She wiped her nose, sniffing. She looked at him. “Can you drive for a bit?”

  “Sure,” he said. He opened his door, walking around the outside of the car while Julia scooted over. His body still ached, but he was used to it now, the pain a part of him. He checked for traffic, waiting for a bus to thump past in a wash of rainwater, then pulled back onto the dual carriageway, accelerating hard.

  “Just a man,” he chanted to himself. “Just a man.”

  He is everywhere, he’s the devil, he sees everything.

  He thought of Daniel Keller, his terror, his utter conviction that the man was something more than human.

  “No, he’s just a man.”

  We all know him. He’s the bad thing that lies inside us all, the hate, the greed, the fury. He’s the darkness at the end of the world, the night that will swallow the day.

  He thought of that poor kid. Was he still lying there on the grass? Would anybody ever find his body? He could lie there in the shadow of the Nevill house until the end of time.

  The Nevill house.

  Blake cocked his head, a thought rolling around his skull like a marble. The house was empty, no other properties close by. There were places to hide, and it was already partially barricaded. The devil man knew that place, yes, but he probably hadn’t been there for a while. And he wouldn’t think to look there, not straight away.

  The house.

  The place where Elizabeth Nevill and her three children had been butchered.

  He turned to Julia, curled up in the passenger seat, and she looked back with moon-bright eyes.

  “I know where we need to go,” he said.

  Fifty-Five

  He didn’t need the satnav this time. He knew the way, turning off the A11 and heading southeast through the two villages he had passed before, past stubbled fields, the forest a dark line on the horizon. Connor had drifted off in his chair. Julia was so still that she might have been asleep too, but her eyes were open, staring into the farms, and then the woods, and then the darkness of the ending day.

  It was coming up for five when Blake pulled off the road onto the track that led to the Nevill house. The rocking car woke Julia from her trance and she sat up, her back popping. Connor sniffled in his sleep, stretching his arms and moaning softly.

  “Is this it?” she asked quietly, cupping her free hand to the side window and staring at the banks of trees on either side. The rain still fell, the moon a smudge of bone that peeked at them from behind the topmost branches. The car bounced in a rut and she cracked her head on the glass. “Ow.”

  The track passed the stack of felled trees then curled right. The headlights carved through the dark, revealing the barn, then the front garden, then the house. Blake stopped the car beside Daniel Keller’s Ford and killed the engine, staring at the place through the windscreen. For some reason it looked smaller than it had before, more derelict.

  “Are you serious?” Julia said, attempting a laugh. “Wow, Blake, you sure know how to treat a lady.”

  The sudden quiet had shaken Connor awake and he stared out at the house, his face crumpling.

  “Hey, mate, you’re okay,” Blake said, reaching back to tickle the boy under his chin. “It’s not for long.”

  “What is this place?” Julia asked.

  He wondered whether he should lie to her, then decided against it.

  “It belonged to the woman I was telling you about, Elizabeth Nevill.”

  “What?” she said. “Seriously? This is where they died?”

  “We can defend it,” he said. “We can make it safe.”

  “Like they did? Come on, Blake.”

  “They didn’t know,” he said, turning to her. “They didn’t know what we know. She thought she could run, and he was waiting for her, right there in the garden. But only because he’d bugged her like he bugged us. He knew what she was going to do.”

  She started to argue, but he cut her off.

  “We know more,” he said. “We know he’s coming for us, we have time to do something about it.”

  She shook her head and he could almost read her thoughts: we should have gone to the police, we should have stayed at home, we should have tried to reason with him. Then she took a deep, shivering breath, holding it, exhaling slowly.

  “We’d better get Conn inside,” she said.

  Blake nodded, trying his best to find a reassuring smile. He groaned his way out of the car and grabbed the machete from the passenger footwell. He was pretty sure the house was empty, but he didn’t like the idea going anywhere now without a weapon.

  Julia joined him by the front of the car, Connor in one arm and their Duffel bag over her other shoulder. She hoisted up their son, shaking the rain from her face. Doof had scrambled out as well, snuffling at the ground around them.

  “After you,” Julia said.

  Blake walked swiftly across the garden, taking a circuitous route so that he wouldn’t have to go near the body that still lay near the veranda steps. Julia eyed it nervously, like it might just stand up and start lurching towards them. She clutched Connor’s head to her chest.

  Blake pulled the board from the living room window and climbed inside, holding it for Julia and lifting Doof in too. Immediately the smell clawed its way into his nose and he gagged. Without his phone, he had to fumble blindly across the room. He found the mantel, the matches, and sparked one up.

  “There are only two ways in,” he said as he lit a candle. “Here and upstairs. We can nail that board shut and make it harder for them to get inside.”

  Julia put her hand to her mouth and surveyed the living room with an expression of disgust. Her eyes fell on the tribute of clothes that had been assembled on the sofa.

  “He was insane,” Blake said, lighting a second candle. “He thought that by coming here, by… by making figures of them, he could make it better, redeem himself somehow. I think he thought he was bringing them back to life.”

  She shook her head again, dropping the duffel and carrying Connor to the middle of the room.

  “What are those photos?” she asked, nodding at the pile scattered around the fireplace.

  “Just family albums,” Blake said, not wanting to mention that there were some of him and Julia and Connor in there.

  “And the box?”

  He looked into the fireplace, at the charred box with the padlock. He’d completely forgotten about it.

  “I don’t know,” he said, using a foot to nudge Doof away from the food wrappers that littered the floor, from the stains of old microwave meals. “This was his altar, god knows what was goin
g through his head.”

  “Did anyone die in here, Blake? In this room?”

  He pictured the body bag on the floor and nodded.

  “She did,” he said. “Elizabeth, the mum.”

  “Then we’re moving somewhere else.”

  He snapped the candles from their waxy bed and walked past her, out through the archway into the hall. He knew where the kitchen was, but there was a door further down and he tried the handle. The damp wood had swollen shut so he gave it a solid kick and it wobbled open. Directing the candles into the darkness he saw that it was a playroom, shelves full of board games and boxed toys on the far wall and a small TV in the corner. The smell in here was mould mixed with dust, but it was like the great outdoors compared to the rest of the house.

  “Will this be okay?” he asked. “For now?”

  She carried Connor in, prodded the carpet with her foot, then set him down. Blake planted the candles on top of the TV, testing the board over the window—stuck tight. He called for Doof and the little dog chuffed inside like a steam train, ecstatic to have somewhere new to explore. At least somebody was enjoying himself.

  “I’ll go get the stuff,” said Julia.

  “Hey,” he replied. He walked to her and took her in his arms. She hugged him hard—too hard.

  “Sorry,” she said, not letting go. “Are we doing the right thing, Blake?”

  “No,” he said. She cocked her head, looking up at him. “I think we’re doing the only thing.”

  She held him for a moment more and let go, taking one of the candles and disappearing through the door. Blake leaned against the boarded window, watching Connor crawl around the room chirping like a bird, Doof up on his hind legs so he could explore the shelves. This was the only thing they could do, he was sure of it. This was the only way to end it, once and for all.

  Julia returned a few minutes later, dumping the carry-on and the bag of tools by the door. She wiped her brow, shivering against the chill of the house.