by Nick Gifford
The shimmering disc rushed towards him, wrapping itself around Vince, swallowing him up.
In that fraction of a second, Matt had time to see the look of sheer rage that crossed Vince’s features as he realised he had been tricked.
And then he had time to realise that Vince had grabbed him by the wrist and was pulling him with him, through the Way.
The shimmering disc wrapped itself around both of them, and Matt felt a sudden wave of heat and nausea swamping him, and then there was only blackness.
19 Closure
He felt alone – more alone than he had ever been before – but he knew he wasn’t.
He opened his eyes and saw himself in the distance, afloat in the blackness, adrift.
He managed to twist, to turn, and he saw another figure, turning, peering around, looking lost.
Only this time, it wasn’t another version of himself. This time it was Vince. His pale, angry face twitching and jumping as he tried to work out where he was, what was happening.
For a moment Matt felt guilty to have done this to his own cousin. But then he remembered Kirsty’s terrified face, the sight of her features smeared with blood and tears in the dim light of the basement.
And the madness in Vince’s eyes.
This had been his only chance to stop him.
Matt looked around again, and as he did so he made out the multiple versions of himself he had seen before, along with multiple Vinces, all angry, all confused. Some of them started to thrash about wildly, twisting and tumbling in the dark void.
What had he done? How had he got out of here before?
He closed his eyes and the darkness was complete. Calmness, absolute stillness. He was powerless here, he knew.
~
Running, through endless brick-walled corridors. Terrified of the dark presence in the shadows, in the depths of the maze, just waiting for him to make the wrong move.
He wasn’t powerless any more, he knew. He could influence his own destiny.
But so could Vince.
And Vince was in here with him. He could hear his voice, screaming at him, threatening him.
He tried to pace himself, tried to think. Last time he was in this maze he had blacked out and woken up on the beach. Had that happened because he had been running for a certain amount of time, or had he passed on simply because he had stopped running?
He had to work it out. The only advantage he had over Vince was his previous experience.
He kept running. Kept running until his legs were like concrete and it was all he could do to drag one foot after the other.
~
The beach, sand and shingle pressing into his face.
As soon as consciousness returned, he was up onto his knees, looking all around. He had to get away from here before Vince figured out what was happening. Because he felt certain that Vince would learn the ropes in a place like this pretty quickly.
“Hey! Come back!”
Vince was dragging himself out of the surf, bloody sea-water running down off his leather jacket.
Matt sprinted up to the Promenade and plunged through the staring crowd.
He had to get to Kirsty. He had to get out of here.
~
But in his haste he had forgotten about the others.
He swung the front door open and Vince was waiting for him, smiling, a claw hammer hanging casually from one hand.
Had Vince got here from the beach already, or was this one of the others?
It hardly mattered.
Vince raised the hammer and lunged at Matt.
He sidestepped and the hammer’s metal head struck him on the shoulder, sending a stabbing bolt of pain right through his body. Vince was off-balance and Matt pushed him into the wall, stunning him.
For an instant, he thought about rushing into the house and taking his chance of finding Kirsty, but then he saw Carol advancing from the kitchen with a bread-knife in her hand. “Matthew,” she said. “How lovely to see you.”
He backed away, then turned and ran.
~
Vince was coming along the street, his pale face smeared red from the beach. Matt turned and ran, back along the street towards an alleyway he knew would take him through to the Main Road.
Vince came after him, but then Matt heard his footsteps falter, stop. He looked back.
Vince was staring at his double in shock. Then he started to smile. He said something, and the two of them turned as one to look at Matt.
And then, one Vince raised his hammer and smashed it into the other one’s face.
The wet thud of the impact seemed to echo along the street.
Matt watched in horror as Vince’s legs crumpled and he slid to the ground. The other Vince had to use both hands to pull the hammer out of his victim’s broken face.
~
He knew he didn’t have long. He didn’t know how long it would be before Vince reappeared on the beach: a wiser, more experienced Vince.
He had to get to Kirsty.
He broke into a garden shed and armed himself with a hammer and a garden fork.
Back in the street, he approached his aunt’s house, hoping desperately that Kirsty would be there and his efforts weren’t in vain.
Vince was still in front of the house, but the body had gone already.
He was swinging his hammer through the air, reliving his most recent triumph.
Matt came up behind him, taking him by surprise. He raised the fork with both hands and drove it down at Vince’s back.
He thought at first that it wasn’t going to sink in. The blow sent jarring vibrations right up the handle, and then abruptly the tines of the fork overcame the resistance and plunged into Vince’s back.
A grunt emerged from Vince, and the fork was wrenched from Matt’s grip.
Slowly, Vince turned round, a look of surprise on his features.
Desperately, Matt reached for the hammer he had tucked into his trousers.
Vince stepped towards him, the fork still protruding from his back. He raised his hammer, ready to strike, as Matt backed away. He swung, missing Matt by centimetres, and his momentum made him stagger forward onto his knees.
Matt stepped around him and rushed to the front door.
There was something odd about the house, something out of place. Then Matt saw what it was: a trail of mud across the carpet.
Carol was still in the hallway, arranging some dried flowers in a vase, as if she was merely finding something to occupy herself while she waited for him.
She turned and smiled. “Matthew,” she said. “How lovely that you’re here. There’s someone waiting to meet you.”
He stepped past her into the living room.
From behind him, Carol continued, “Yes, Matthew. The vicar has come to tea.”
Matt slammed the door shut behind him.
Kirsty was sitting on the floor exactly where he had hoped she would be.
And sitting in an armchair, sipping delicately from a cup of tea, there was the Reverend Allbright. He was filthy, covered from head to toe in mud, and he had left a trail of soil across the carpet.
The Reverend Allbright caught Matt’s eye and smiled, revealing the brown stumps of his teeth.
Kirsty stood up, a frightened look on her face. “Reverend Allbright,” she said. “He...”
The vicar rose, too. “Matthew Wareden,” he said. “How lovely to see you again so soon. Your grandfather was once so promising, but he lost his nerve, Matthew. He became scared. Maybe you will be different... You see, we want to get out of here. And either you or your cousin will help us. It really is that simple.”
He had something in his hand: something that glinted when the light caught it. Some kind of knife or chisel.
Matt had the hammer ready. He didn’t have long. He swallowed and rushed across the room.
Allbright was prepared. He crouched low, waiting for Matt’s attack.
Matt raised the hammer. “Kirsty,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
And
then he swung the hammer down and smashed it into his youngest cousin’s skull.
~
Sand and shingle in his face, the sound of waves, and mewing gulls scavenging debris from the sea.
He opened his eyes, made himself sit. He blinked, trying to shut out the final image of Reverend Allbright’s frenzied expression as he stabbed repeatedly down at Matt’s face and neck.
Allbright hadn’t understood. He’d known that Matt had tricked him, but he hadn’t understood how. So violence was his natural response.
“Kirsty?” Matt called weakly. “Are you here, Kirsty?”
His attention was drawn to a commotion along the beach. The tramp, staggering away as someone kicked at him.
Vince, Matt realised. Vince was attacking the tramp. He had forgotten Vince would have emerged on the beach just before him.
He rolled onto his knees to push himself to his feet. He had to get to Kirsty. It was his only hope.
“Matt?”
She was standing up to her ankles in the red surf, a hand raised to her head where he had struck her. She was crying, he saw. Scared.
“I’m sorry, Kirsty,” he said. “I had to get you away from them. I need your help again. Do you understand? You have to get me out of here. You have to build the bridge again.”
She looked confused.
“The words, Kirsty. The magic words.”
She nodded. Licked her lips. “Never the shield of our minds be breached,” she said hesitantly. “Shine shadow, where light had concealed. Protect us from evil, protect us from fear... Is it working, Matt? Is that what you wanted?”
“Yes, Kirsty. Go on. Please don’t stop.”
Up on the Promenade a crowd was forming: pale faces, bodies clothed in rags. They wanted to get out. They wanted to break out into the real world.
Among the crowd was a man dressed in black, a man who would lead them out: the Reverend Allbright was running straight down the grassy slope towards the beach.
“Shine shadow, where light had concealed.” Kirsty was scared. So was Matt: more scared than he would have thought possible.
“Come on, Kirsty,” he said. “You’re doing well.”
“Hey, you!” A shout from along the beach. Matt looked up and saw Vince starting to run towards them. “Stop them,” Vince cried to the crowd. “They’re trying to trap us.”
Kirsty glanced along the beach.
“Go on, Kirsty!”
The crowd was surging down from the Prom, following Allbright. In a matter of seconds they would be on the beach!
“Never the shield of our darkness concealed... shine, shadow, shine!”
The air started to twist, the disc started to form.
Vince was sprinting now, running on the hard, wet sand.
The disc formed. Matt took Kirsty’s hand and rushed at the Way, gasping as it reached out for them, swallowing them up in its embrace.
The last thing he heard was Vince’s despairing wail.
~
He came round on the hard floor of the basement, exhausted, soaked with sweat.
He wasn’t alone. He was holding Kirsty tightly in his arms.
Never the doors of the righteous be breached. The correct words, over and over in his head, fighting the rising blackness, the heaviness in his limbs. They had to get out of here.
He rose, still holding Kirsty, and carried her up the stairs to the hallway.
At last, he slumped and let her go.
She sat on the floor in a heap. “What did you do?” she asked quietly.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re okay.” Then he looked at her more closely. “What is it?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“It’s gone,” she said, glancing back at the basement door. “You’ve closed it.”
But he could still feel it, the Way. It was only Kirsty who could not.
He smiled. He hadn’t known if it would work: all he had wanted to do was to get the alternate Kirsty away from Vince and the mad crowd on the beach. “It’s okay,” he said again. “I just brought a part of you back from Alternity. You really can’t feel it any more?”
She shook her head. “It’s gone,” she said. “It really has gone.”
~
“You’re the Guardian now,” Gramps told him, as the two of them sat together on the bench in the little hospital garden.
“I know,” said Matt quietly. He was the only one of his generation who could take on the role now that Kirsty’s sensitivity had been removed.
Gramps studied him closely. After a long interval he nodded and said, “Yes, you do, don’t you?” After another long pause, he added, “You’re strong. I can see that. You’ve grown. Does it frighten you?”
Matt nodded. “It should do, though, shouldn’t it? But I know I can handle it. I can beat it – or, at least, I can contain it. It feels good to know that.”
“Good. Our kind are the people who hold society together. We always have done. You’re not alone, Matt. There are other Ways, other Guardians. You’ll meet some of them, in time.”
Now Matt understood why Gramps had travelled so much in the past: he had not been fleeing his responsibilities at all – he had been meeting other Guardians.
“It’s a good life, Matt. An important life. Your gran would have told you so, too. We can’t all choose our own battles. Sometimes they choose us.”
Matt nodded, and he knew that everything was going to be okay.
Epilogue
Autumn sun flooded her bedroom, just as it had when she was a child.
Jill Guilder went across to the window and looked down on the U-shaped drive. She was just in time to see Matt ride off on his new bike with some of his friends, heading for football practice at Bathside School.
She sat down in the window seat and breathed deeply. She was learning how to be happy again, she realised.
It was a slow process, but at last life was starting to come together again.
After three months of temping, she had finally landed a permanent job. Dad was improving all the time – in fact, now that he was back in his own home, he was almost back to his old self.
And Matt.
Matt seemed to be settling in. He seemed to like living in Gramps’ house at Crooked Elms. And he got on so well with his grandfather – it made her feel guilty that they had visited so infrequently before.
He’d started at Bathside School in September, and he seemed to be adapting well. He visited Nigel in Norwich at regular intervals, and Nigel came down every Sunday to watch him play in the local youth team.
A couple of months ago she would never have believed things would work themselves out so quickly.
A couple of months ago... Was that all it was?
She recalled the panicked telephone call from her sister, telling her that Kirsty had disappeared, and then Matt had gone too.
She remembered the fear, the desperate searching.
She still didn’t know how Matt and Kirsty had ended up at Crooked Elms. There had been a garbled explanation that had involved Vince, but she had known immediately that Matt was lying, or at least not telling her the truth. Even now, she wondered if it was fair to doubt him – Vince’s car had been here at the house, after all.
But there had been no trace of Vince, himself. No sign of him at all.
In fact, the only trace of Vince was in the dreams she had started having shortly after moving in with her father. The dreams featured Vince and another man, who seemed to be some kind of vicar. They seemed to be friends, the two of them. They seemed to be working together.
They were strange, disturbing dreams, ones she tried hard to forget as soon as she woke.
It was only natural, she supposed. It was perfectly normal to suffer nightmares after such a traumatic time.
Only natural that they should feature Vince.
Talking to her.
Calling to her.
Trying to find the doors in her mind...
Nick Gifford, Flesh and Blood
