A Few Words for the Dead

by Guy Adams

  Shining, finally alone with his thoughts, moved through the house, checking all the windows were closed and the back door firmly locked. Doors would not keep the Higher Power out, of course, but it would at least channel its host. He wanted the only point of access to be the front door.

  He passed into the hallway, running his fingers along the wall, tapping gently at the door of the understairs storage cupboard before moving back into the interrogation room.

  He was removing the covering from the window — revealing the best view of the front of the house — when he was suddenly blinded by a set of headlights. She was here.

  The woman who was not quite April Shining had enjoyed a comical drive through the country lanes, constantly forcing the dead body of Oman out of her way as it kept toppling over whenever she hit a bump or a pothole. Finally it had folded on itself, its chubby, dead face wedged against the open glove box. There it congealed against a battered A to Z and a box of tissues, no longer a problem.

  She pulled into the driveway of the cottage and got out of the car.

  She looked at the blade of the craft knife she had used on Oman and decided it was of no further use. She flung it into the grass and tried to remember where she had left the gun. Handbag.

  She had to wrestle Oman’s body out of the way, which took considerable effort. It eventually popped loose of its wedged position, its face blooming with stuck tissues and a torn close-up of Holborn Road. It hit the ground with a fart of dead air and she chuckled at the pantomime of it all as she dug her handbag out of the footwell. It was sticky with Oman’s blood but she pulled out the gun and a glistening humbug that now tasted of copper and meat.

  Time to call in all debts.

  The Assassin had darted back into the trees when the Mini had appeared. He watched from cover as the driver got out and wrestled with a body on the passenger seat. He hoped this was not be a complication but, if need be, she would just be another target. Better to kill someone for free than leave witnesses.

  As she got close to the door and the reach of the security light he recognised her face. August Shining’s sister. Yes, he would have no reservations about killing her too.

  She stepped inside the house and he moved closer. He glanced down at the body lying next to it, in the low light it was difficult to tell but he didn’t think it was anyone he knew. What had she been doing driving around with a corpse?

  The open passenger door made suitable cover. He wound down the window so that he could rest his arms on the frame to steady his aim. Everything was tacky, he would have to check his appearance later, maybe even use the house facilities to wash. He had no problem getting blood on his hands either literally or figuratively, but he would need to ensure it didn’t show before he returned to civilisation.

  He took up position, partially aware that the wind was picking up around him. The empty branches of the trees were waving and creaking, the bushes around him bending and whispering gently.

  He racked the gun, loading the first cartridge into place, and lined up his shot.

  The wind continued to build, shaking the car door. At this rate it was more likely to harm his aim than help it. Realisation began to dawn…

  From inside the house came the sound of a gunshot.

  ‘Hello,’ said August as his sister’s body stepped through the front door.

  ‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘Snap!’

  They were both holding their guns to their heads.

  ‘No more,’ said August. ‘I won’t let you kill any more of them.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how you think you’ll stop me,’ she said. ‘After all, once I have your body, I can do whatever I want, can’t I?’

  ‘If it’s my body you’re after, you’ll have to be quick.’ He pulled the trigger.

  Toby wrestled with the steering wheel as the wind buffeted the car and nearly forced it off the road. He glanced at Tamar.

  ‘Fratfield,’ she said, and he couldn’t help but notice the trace of excitement in her voice.

  The wind came again and this time it was almost more than Toby could do to keep control. The car veered onto the verge, shaking both of them up and down in their seats.

  ‘I have to turn around,’ he said. ‘He must be close.’

  ‘If you turn around, we won’t be able to help August,’ she told him. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘You could get out.’

  ‘Keep going!’ she shouted.

  In the glare of the headlights they both caught a glimpse of the fat, pale wind demon, appearing on the road ahead of them. The car sailed through it and began to spin, its wheels leaving the ground altogether for a moment before bouncing back down and breaking into a roll.

  Fratfield heard the sound of a car crashing a short way up the road, the wind pressing him back against April’s car. He wasn’t prepared for this.

  The passenger door blew back at him and it was only his quick reactions that enabled him to get his hand up in time to stop it hitting him.

  He stepped out of the way, allowing the door to blow shut.

  He wasn’t going to walk away. Wind or no wind, he would get this job done. He would kill August Shining.

  The entity was there in an instant. Leaping from April’s body and into August’s, spinning his head so that the bullet caught his jaw rather than his temple. The pain was exquisite, the old man’s jawbone shattering, teeth flung loose.

  ‘Now!’ he heard someone shout, only partially aware of Ryska and Jennings bursting from the cupboard beneath the stairs and grabbing the body he had just vacated.

  ‘What’s happening?’ April shouted, her mind reeling as they grabbed her and yanked her along the hallway.

  ‘Quickly!’ Ryska said, between them dragging April past Shining’s fallen body and through into the kitchen.

  ‘August!’ she shouted.

  ‘We have to move, Ms Shining,’ Jennings insisted. ‘He know what he’s doing.’

  April’s head was pounding even worse than it had earlier, the after effects of the entity having possessed her for so long. Her vision was a mess of bright, flashing lights, nausea wracking her.

  Ryska took hold of her as Jennings reached for the backdoor key, hidden on top of the lintel. He unlocked it and stepped out, gun moving through the darkness. The wind made it almost impossible to move, pressing him back against the wall of the house.

  ‘I think we’re clear!’ he shouted, reaching back to help Ryska and April through the doorway.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ April shouted, before convulsing and throwing up, Ryska stepping clear just in time.

  ‘Help me,’ she said to Jennings, the two of them lifting April between them and moving as quickly as they could away from the house, each step an effort against the wind.

  The man that was no longer August Shining rolled on the floor, his jaw hanging loose and scraping against the ground.

  ‘A deal is a deal,’ he said, though the sound that came out wasn’t recognisable, his bloodied tongue thrashing in the air.

  He turned the gun on himself again and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered his stomach.

  ‘Just like last time, eh?’ he said. ‘What goes around comes around, old man. The next time you’re near death…’

  He dropped the gun, blood oozing out of him as he slapped his way along the hallway floor.

  His movements slowed, old hands pushing against the slimy floor, spreading the blood out in sharp arcs.

  ‘Near death…’

  The letter of the contract fulfilled, the entity went to work.

  It wished Shining could feel the results as it knitted split flesh back together. It pushed its new jaw back into place, bone fusing with bone, teeth sprouting from roots that had once been dead. Skin stretched, nerves fired and it screamed in the most delirious pleasure as its new body healed around itself.

  Toby pulled himself free of his seatbelt, falling onto the roof of the upturned car. ‘Tamar?’

  She grunted and he reached for he
r seatbelt even as the car began to spin again, turning on its roof.

  ‘Oh God,’ he moaned, ‘Tamar…’

  The car flipped again and he collided with the dashboard, losing consciousness.

  The thing that was now August Shining stood up, straightened its tie and exercised its jaw. He still ached but that would pass, as would the burning sensation in his stomach. His essence oozed through the flesh, filling it with life and energy. Old? Not so much, not now. He ironed out some of the wrinkles, flexed the muscles, strengthened the bones. By the time he had finished he had knocked twenty years off the old bastard, not quite the man that had first made the deal, perhaps, but close enough.

  He became aware of the wind raging outside. How suitably theatrical, he thought and decided to step out and see what it felt like on its face.

  Walking towards the door he savoured every sensation, the clothes rubbing against his body, the gentle pounding of the floor against the soles of his feet, the tensing of every muscle as he moved.

  Yes. This was life. This was flesh. This was real.

  He turned the handle on the front door only for it to swing back on its hinges and knock him in the face. He laughed to feel the pain of it, stumbling back against the wind, delighting in the lightheaded feeling caused by the blow from the door.

  Everything was so strong! Everything felt so much!

  He stepped outside and extended his arms in the wind, staggering slightly as it rocked him from side to side.

  ‘Lovely,’ he said, feeling the quiver in his throat and chest as he spoke. It had never been like this before; when he had taken temporary hosts, he had been insulated. The sensations had been remote. Pleasurable, yes, but not like this. It could feel everything.

  A gunshot rang out and, for the briefest of seconds it felt that too, the bullet hitting him square on the bridge of the nose, plastic shattering on impact and exploding through his brand new brain. A second shot was fired but unnecessary. By the time it entered August Shining’s head, both the body and the creature now inhabiting it were dead.

  FORTY-THREE

  Bill Fratfield, the Assassin, worked at his belt and uncoupled himself from the tree he had strapped himself to. As he did so, the wind began to die down. Rather than curse the timing – thirty seconds earlier and he would have had a much easier shot – he chose to focus on the fact that this could only mean the demon had done its work. Tamar was dead and hopefully Greene had died with her.

  He walked over to August Shining’s dead body to admire his handiwork. He nudged it with his toe, taking a degree of professional and personal satisfaction in the limp, lifeless way the body moved.

  He took his phone from his pocket and photographed the corpse, sending the image to his client. It was hardly a secure thing to do but he’d be ditching the sim card shortly and was confident that it would never be traced back to him.

  He went into the house to ensure he didn’t look like a man who’d just killed someone. There was some blood on his palms from the woman’s car but that was all. He scrubbed them clean and left again by the front door, taking one last look at the corpse of August Shining as he passed.

  He picked up his belongings and made his way back up the road towards the abandoned taxi. He might have been inclined to use the old woman’s car had it not been covered in blood. People would be looking for the taxi soon and, while the driver had assured him the GPS wasn’t functioning, he would rather not be driving it. He would take it part way there, he decided, and then switch to something else.

  In the middle of the road was another car, upturned and dented.

  He looked through the windows, hoping to see the dead bodies of Toby and Tamar, but it was empty. He looked around. Maybe they had been flung into the trees. He imagined the dawn falling on them in a few hours’ time. Bad fruit.

  Reaching the taxi, he climbed in and headed back towards London.

  On hearing the final gunshots, April had tried to fight her way free of Jennings’ grip but he had lain down on top of her, pinning her to the earth.

  ‘We can’t interfere,’ Ryska shouted to her. ‘He’s doing what he has to do.’

  ‘Says who?’ April screamed.

  ‘August,’ Ryska replied. ‘This is all him. He made us promise to help you but to keep right back. It’s important. If we mess it up for him now, his sacrifice won’t mean a thing.’

  The wind had suddenly dropped, leaving her shouting for no reason.

  ‘We can’t leave him,’ April was saying. ‘I won’t. We’ve fought through too much over the years, I’m damned if it’s going to end up with me leaving him to rot in the middle of bloody nowhere.’

  Ryska looked to Jennings. He nodded. It was silent now and neither of them truly believed there would be anything to go back for except a body.

  Now that the wind had died down, it took only seconds to cover the ground that before had been the work of minutes.

  April entered through the back door, slowing as she saw the body of her brother lying ahead of her on the front porch.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ she said. ‘This is ridiculous. A man like August doesn’t go down from a bloody gunshot. A monster, a demon, a stupid pissing vampire… that I can believe, but a bullet to the head?’

  Ryska and Jennings stood behind her.

  ‘Do you want me to look?’ Ryska offered.

  ‘Of course not, darling. I’ve been rolling corpses since before your daddy’s balls had hair. Just give me a minute.’

  Jennings whispered in Ryska’s ear. ‘Should I call back the other two?’

  Ryska looked around for a moment then nodded. ‘It’s done, get them back here.’

  He stepped to one side and called the two officers who had left earlier in the car.

  April moved forward, shaking herself and walking with determination.

  She squatted down next to August, turning away at the sight of his head. She pulled one of her scarves from around her neck and draped it over the worst.

  ‘Ah fuck,’ she sighed. ‘You really are bloody dead, aren’t you?’

  She began to cry.

  Tamar woke up, sitting upright in wild panic, and scrabbling at the grass beneath her. She was alone. She remembered the car tumbling, remembered the sound of metal and glass, the disorientation that had followed, a rush of colour and noise followed by blackness. She remembered hands reaching for her, the tight grip of the seatbelt then the slackness and the sensation of falling. Had the sky been full of trees? It had felt so, howling and creaking and rustling. The sensation of the grass on her back, rushing, a burning on her arms. Had someone been holding her? She thought she remembered choking, her T-shirt constricting around her neck and the stars rush by. Then there had been silence.

  Now this.

  What had happened? Someone must have pulled her out of the car. Toby? Then where was he now?

  The wind had ceased, and it was now silent out here in the blackness of English countryside. The chill made her shiver and she got to her feet, stumbling as her left ankle gave out beneath her, sending her face down into the dirt again.

  Her ankle was sprained or broken, she had no idea which. It was not her only pain. Something had torn in her neck; turning her head caused a sharp stab of pain to shoot down her back. She touched her head and was surprised it didn’t hurt.

  Lucky Tamar.

  She crawled on her hands and knees, trying to get a sense of where she was. A field? A hill, she decided, as the ground dipped beneath her and she tumbled forward, rolling in sickly agony down several metres of long grass.

  She finally found her voice. ‘Toby!’

  In the distance came a faint answer, and she sighed and crawled her way towards it, testing the ground before her with her hands, not wanting to fall again.

  A couple of minutes later, she heard his voice again, this time coming from her left. She sighed, rolled onto her back and shouted his name at the top of her voice. To hell with it, he could come to her. She couldn’t go any further.
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br />   They kept calling to one another until, finally, Toby saw his wife lying in the grass and came running. He squatted down next to her and she grabbed his arm. She let go of it again due to his screaming.

  ‘Broken,’ he explained, out of breath and feeling completely spaced out. Concussion. He knew this from experience, having had his head cracked by a bust of Beethoven some time ago. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Ankle,’ she said. ‘Sprained, I think.’

  ‘Lucky. Both of us. How did you get up—’ He suddenly had to turn away and be sick. Definitely concussion, he decided, lying back next to her. They’d move in a minute. They had to, they needed to make sure August was…

  Toby passed out.

  Tamar sat up and tried to wake him up again. She didn’t think it was good to let him be unconscious. Or did he need to be? She couldn’t remember. She screamed in frustration and somewhere in the darkness, a fox answered.

  When the car finally pulled up outside the safe house – a description it had long since ceased to deserve – Jennings ran to meet it.

  ‘Took your bloody time,’ he said to the driver.

  ‘Road was blocked,’ the driver explained. ‘These two had crashed.’ He nodded towards Toby and Tamar on the backseat. ‘Said there was some sort of storm?’

  His scepticism couldn’t have been clearer. From his position a couple of miles up the road he had seen nothing.

  ‘Like Piccadilly Circus out here tonight,’ he continued. ‘Some bloke went tearing past in a taxi too.’

  ‘Fine time to pick up bloody civilians,’ Jennings sighed. ‘I’ll get an ambulance on the way.’

  ‘We’re not bloody civilians,’ Tamar told him. ‘We are here to help August Shining.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jennings sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s a little late for that.’

  Toby kept slipping in and out of consciousness but he picked up on that.

  ‘August?’ he asked, struggling to climb out of the back seat, his balance all over the place.