Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  “Ash,” he said.

  The man turned his head and looked at Blake.

  “Ash,” he said again.

  “What did you say?” the man growled.

  “Ashley,” Blake said—a guess, but it had been right, because once again the illusion flickered, the man’s face falling. Just a man.

  “Ashley,” Blake said again, and he felt the grip around his throat loosen. He punched again and caught the man in the nose, something snapping beneath his knuckles. He backed towards the fireplace. The man stood in the middle of the room, shaking, staring wide-eyed at Blake.

  Just a man.

  The flames were licking the bottom of his coat, tasting it. He looked down nervously, stepping away.

  “I’m not him,” he said. “I’m not him. Not anymore.”

  “Ashley,” said Blake. “You’re nothing, you’re a joke.”

  “I’m more than that,” he said, and he looked down at his leg again, at the flames spreading there, spreading fast. “More than him. I’m the night that swallows—”

  “You’re nothing,” Blake said again. “Just Ashley. It’s the name you were born with, it’s the name you’ll die with. Nothing more.”

  “No!” the man screamed.

  He ran at Blake, dragging a cape of fire behind him.

  Just a man.

  Blake held his ground.

  Just a stupid fucking man.

  He stepped aside at the last minute and the man hurtled past, blinded by smoke. His head banged off the wall above the mantel, his boots nearly trampling Connor. He staggered back and Blake launched himself, grabbing his coat and wrestling him onto the smouldering carpet. Flames cocooned them both, the man burning like a bonfire. He reached for Blake but his arms had ignited too, the blazing coat holding him back.

  “Fuck you,” Blake said, the heat almost too much, his exposed skin blistering. The man fumbled at Blake’s face, screaming now as the fire ate into him. His neck had turned black, the hairs of his beard curling.

  Blake balled a fist and drove it into the man’s face—all those days of fear, of rage, of grief and mourning and hatred giving him a strength he never knew he had.

  “Fuck you!” he said, hitting him again. The heat was killing him but there was no pain now. There was just one thought, one action, as pure as anything he had ever felt in his life.

  He placed one hand on the man’s chin and pushed hard, tilting his head back and to the side. Then he leant in and bit into the man’s exposed throat, his teeth chewing at the ridged cord of his windpipe. The man struggled, but Blake didn’t stop. He felt the pop as his teeth broke skin, felt blood gush into his mouth.

  He bit hard, clenched, pulled back, the man’s throat ripping free. Then he spat it into the fire, hearing it hiss. He fell away, swallowing blood, scrambling back.

  The man’s hands went to his throat, his fingers trying to push the flaps of skin together. He breathed out and it bubbled through his ruptured windpipe. His legs kicked at the floor, one huge boot flopping off. His eyes never left Blake, full of horror, of the inevitability of what was happening—and more, the knowledge that he was just a man, that he would die here like anybody else.

  Blake crawled to his son. The kid moaned, spit hanging from his mouth. He was alive.

  He left Connor there. He hadn’t finished yet.

  He stood up, using the fireplace to help him. The man was shaking hard, drowning in fire, choking on his own blood.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He spotted the axe, lying where he’d dropped it when the man had tackled him. It seemed even heavier than before, but that was a good thing, it would make his job easier. He heaved it up, holding it over the man’s head.

  “My wife is still alive,” he said. “My son is alive. I am alive.”

  And he brought the axe down. It hit the man in the top of his chest, the log-splitting head snapping his collarbone and sinking deep. He tugged it free and hit him again, chopping through the ravaged flesh of his throat. The man’s body lurched once, almost coming off the floor. Then it twitched into stillness. Blake lifted the axe one more time and let it drop. The blade severed the dead man’s spine, cutting through the butter-soft strands of flesh that remained, and the head rolled away, the eyelids fluttering.

  Blake threw down the axe, and for a moment he couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. The heat was too much, the smoke. It wrapped itself around him, smothering him. For an awful moment he thought he was going to pass out, that he might just fall unconscious here and leave his son to burn.

  No.

  He fought through the smoke and snatched Connor from the fireplace. The sofa was a pyre, the floorboards burning, the ceiling disintegrating. He put his head down and ran straight for the arch, out into the hall. The smoke was a solid wall that tried to stop him. But it was just smoke, and it could not hold him back.

  He’d fought the devil tonight, after all, and he’d won.

  He pushed through it, bouncing off a wall, off the boarded door, out into the beautiful, oxygen-drenched, moonlit night.

  Sixty-Four

  And he was laughing as he staggered into the garden, laughter that became sobs that morphed into laughter again. The heat steered him away, to safety, like the fire was done with him.

  He kept going until he reached the police car, collapsing onto the bonnet. Connor squirmed in his arms, almost too heavy to carry, his fists pushing at Blake’s face as he tried to escape. But Blake held fast, held tight, pulling off the boy’s clothes and looking for burns, for cuts. The kid was filthy, but he seemed okay. Blake pushed his face into him and breathed that smell—beneath the smoke, beneath the stench of the man, that unmistakable, incredible smell of his son.

  Somebody sniffed.

  Blake looked across the garden. A young guy was standing there, the last of the man’s disciples—the one who had been at the top of the stairs just before Blake had fallen from the window. He looked nervously at Blake, at the fire, toying with the Arsenal cap on his head.

  “Is he dead?” he called out, sniffing again.

  Blake backed away, glancing at the truck, at the weapons inside.

  “Yeah,” he said. “He’s dead.”

  The guy looked as if he might cry. He stared at the fire again and breathed out a long, shuddering breath.

  “Thank you,” he said, before bolting into the dark.

  Blake waited a full minute, and only when he was confident he was really gone did he turn and carry Connor the other way, circling the house and entering the trees on the opposite side. The searchlight moon worked with the blazing building, showing him the way. He slipped and stumbled over the soft ground, over the roots, pushing past the branches until he found Julia.

  Please don’t be dead.

  She wasn’t, her head twisting up in alarm when she heard his footsteps, a weak smile dancing onto her lips when she saw who it was. She cried into her hand as Blake fell onto his knees beside her, then opened her arms to receive Connor. The kid held her, he pushed his face into her neck, and just like that he stopped crying.

  “Blake,” Julia said, wrapping one arm around Connor and reaching for him with the other. He took her hand and held it to his face, kissing it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I managed to stop the bleeding,” she said, adjusting her position and grimacing. “Think I ate way too many painkillers, but I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  She looked at him, her face creased with worry, and he read the question there.

  “He’s dead,” he said. And the words seemed to drag something up from inside him, something immense, something unquenchable. He broke into sobs, his chest heaving, his teeth chattering with the force of them. He said it again, just to be sure. “He’s dead.”

  She pulled him close and he lay next to her, his head on her shoulder and her face against his. They rested there and cried into each other. Only Connor was silent, studying them with a frown on his face. Then the kid burst out laughing, chuckling
uncontrollably, finding the whole thing hilarious. He laughed for himself, he laughed for all of them as they huddled there in the forest, bathed in silver light.

  It was the sirens that roused them, as faint and quiet as distant birdsong, like dawn had arrived. Blake looked up, smudging his eyes with the back of his hand. It could have been a minute since he walked into the woods, it might have been hours. He had no idea. Time had slipped off its chain, it didn’t mean anything anymore.

  They grew louder, joined by the roar of engines, and shortly after there were shouts too, bursting through the woods.

  “Here,” croaked Blake, so quietly he barely heard himself.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Julia whispered, taking a breath and shouting out, “Here!” She clutched her back with her free hand. “Fuck me, that hurt.”

  They called out together, children lost in the woods, but it was Connor’s chirping cries that drew them. The kid was still laughing, like the whole thing had been a game. He bleated half-words and nonsense at the top of his lungs until they heard footsteps in the undergrowth, voices getting closer. A police officer in armour appeared from behind a tree, going so fast he almost tripped on Blake’s legs. He swung his torch down.

  “Holy shit,” he said, then hollered back, “Over here!”

  He ducked down, examining them.

  “You guys okay?”

  “Oh sure,” said Julia, and they were laughing again, snorting like there was nitrous oxide in the air. The man raised an eyebrow, looking at them like they were insane, like they were delirious. And they were, Blake guessed. You didn’t go through all that without losing a piece of yourself, without losing a piece of your sanity. He laughed some more, until the pain was too much and he had to stop. He held Julia’s hand, held his son, as the paramedics appeared. He held them tight.

  You didn’t go through all that without finding something too.

  Julia lay on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, hooked up to a drip. She looked like a ghost in the harsh artificial lights, but the smile she threw Blake was as real as it got. Connor was still in her arms, the kid mesmerised by a stethoscope that one of the paramedics had given him.

  Blake stood outside the ambulance, draped in a space blanket. Not that he needed it. They were parked at the far end of the driveway but the heat from the burning house was still unbelievable. The whole thing was ablaze now, the roof long gone, the walls crumbling in the force of the inferno. It was a fitting end to the man called Ash, the man who hadn’t been a devil. He’d burn to bone dust in there, and then that would burn too. He’d burn right out of the universe.

  “You should get inside,” said one of the paramedics. “We need to take a look at you.”

  “I’m fine, honestly,” said Blake, and he meant it. Nothing could touch him now.

  “He’s not,” said Julia from inside. “He’s got three serious wounds in his shoulder and one beneath his ribs. Those are burns, second degree if he’s lucky. Look at him, he’s black, blue and yellow, god knows what else was knocked loose.”

  “I’m alive,” he said, tonguing the gap in his teeth. The paramedic whistled, shaking his head.

  “And I have no idea how,” he said, climbing into the ambulance.

  “Alive,” Blake said, not quite able to believe it. “Besides, we’re waiting for one more.”

  He could hear him now, Doof’s soft barks rising above the crackle and pop of the blaze. Blake stepped away from the ambulance and squinted into the woods on the other side of the house, seeing a constable walk from between the trees, struggling with the creature in her hands. Doof was squirming hard, flopping all over the place, and when he saw Blake he leapt from the woman’s arms, propelling himself over the grass, going so fast he might have been flying.

  “Here boy!” Blake said. He wanted to duck down but his knee was too swollen, so he patted his legs instead. Doof didn’t even slow, just jumped at him, going face-first into his thigh and bouncing off. His little legs kicked at the air like an upended turtle, then he righted himself, bounding up the step and into the back of the ambulance. Blake scratched the dog’s head, letting him lick his lips, Doof barking at him ecstatically. He spun in circles before standing on his hind legs, his paws on the stretcher so he could see Julia and Connor.

  “He can ride in here, but he’s not allowed on the bed,” the paramedic said, smiling at the dog. “Now are you ready?”

  “One second,” Blake said. He limped up the driveway to where a circle of police stood around the bodies of their colleagues. Somebody had draped a couple of jackets over the faces of the dead men, but Blake could still see what the devil had done to them. He wondered if he would always see them—see all of them, the dead. The cops turned as he approached and the oldest of them nodded in welcome. He was tall, his limbs too long for the cheap suit he was wearing, but he didn’t need a uniform for Blake to know he was in charge.

  “Is your wife okay?” he asked Blake, offering an enormous hand. “I’m Superintendent Clare. Colin.”

  Blake lifted his arm to shake the man’s hand, but he simply couldn’t do it. It felt like he was holding an invisible weight.

  “She will be,” he replied. “They both will. I’m sorry about your friends.”

  Clare nodded again, looking at the house.

  “You say he’s in there, the man who did this?”

  “Yeah,” Blake said. He’d blurted out everything he could remember to the officer who’d found them, probably not making one iota of sense. That had been the important thing, though, the only thing that mattered. The man was gone. “He’s dead.”

  “You sure about that?” Clare asked. “I was out here before, you know. I saw what happened to the last family. I thought it was over then, I want to be sure it’s over now.”

  Blake hissed a humourless laugh through his nose.

  “I cut the bastard’s head off.”

  The Superintendent shared a look with another man, then turned back to Blake, clearing his throat.

  “You can go,” he said. “You must be running out of blood. We’ll meet you at the hospital. Got a few questions you might want to help me with.”

  Blake nodded, making his way back to the ambulance. The engine rumbled, the lights painting the garden blue.

  “Got another ambulance inbound,” the paramedic said. “If you wanna hang on you can get a bed to yourself.”

  Blake shook his head. He wasn’t going to leave Julia or Connor. He wasn’t going to leave them ever again. The paramedic offered him a hand, pulling him up.

  “Sit tight,” he said. “It’s not far.”

  Blake did as he was told, perching on the foldout chair beside Julia. When was the paramedic going to break out the bloody painkillers?

  “Well, that has to go down as the weirdest day of my life,” Julia said, trying to laugh and wincing instead.

  “You’re not wrong,” he replied. “Weirdest day, weirdest week.”

  Six days of hell.

  “But we made it,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He smiled, looking at her then at his son. Connor studied him with those brilliant blue eyes, saying something that only he could understand. Blake took his tiny hand, rubbing it gently with his thumb.

  “We made it,” he said.

  He looked through the doors at the fire, at the collapsing house. Only when the paramedic pulled them shut did he close his eyes, feeling the ambulance lurch forward, rocking over the potholed track. He held Connor’s hand, felt Julia’s fingers in his hair.

  “We made it.”

  Then they were accelerating into the night, the roar of the inferno fading behind the sound of the engine, fading behind the sirens, fading, and then gone.

  About the Author

  Alex Smith wrote his first book when he was six. It wasn’t particularly good, but it did have some supernatural monsters in it. His thrillers have monsters in them too, although these monsters are very human, and all the more terrifying for it. Alex has pub
lished twelve other novels for children and teenagers under his full name, Alexander Gordon Smith—including the number one bestselling series Escape From Furnace, which is loved by millions of readers worldwide and which is soon to become a motion picture. He lives in Norwich with his wife and three young daughters.

  Find out more at alexsmithbooks.com

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  PROLOGUE