The Anomaly (Scarrett & Kramer Book 2)

by Neil Carstairs

  A new sound made her flinch, loud in the confines of the stable. David Lee Roth urging her to Jump. Kramer fought the urge to scream as she dragged her phone out. Her fingers shook so much she couldn’t answer it and kill the ringtone of Van Halen’s anthem. She scuttled to the stable door and glanced out, pleased to see the hairy monster swatting at its chest as the Tiny, Reuben and Geordie shot it.

  Kramer looked at the phone. Scarrett. She should have guessed that if anyone called when she was in this kind of situation it would be Scarrett.

  “Yes?” she kept her voice low.

  “Kramer? Sorry, I missed your call.”

  “Call?” she snorted. “Try calls.”

  “Yeah, well, I got sent to Scotland, and the phone signal was very patchy.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “What, now?”

  “Yes, now.” Did that sound too tetchy?

  “Well, I was hoping to talk. Are you busy?”

  “Kind of.” She risked another look and wished she hadn’t. The ogre had decided to head back towards the stables.

  “Say,” Scarrett said, “is that gunfire?”

  “Yeah,” Kramer edged back into the dark of the stable. “We’re having a spot of trouble with a thirty-foot tall ogre.”

  “That’ll be a jotunn, not an ogre,” Scarrett said.

  Kramer took the phone from her ear and stared at it. When she put it back, her voice almost snapped, “And what the fuck is a jotunn?”

  “According to the expert I spoke to it’s a giant that comes from Norse mythology. We had a warning about jotunns and draegers.”

  Kramer barely breathed. “A warning?” she said. “About jotunns and draegers?”

  “Yeah,” Scarrett said. “Jotunns are giants and draegers are the undead.”

  “Undead.”

  “Uh-huh.” Scarrett laughed. “You had them as well?”

  “Yeah.”

  He seemed to catch on she wasn’t happy. “Congrave didn’t think it was connected to you.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Kramer...”

  “I’ll call you back if I’m still alive.” She disconnected the call and promised herself she’d kill Scarrett next time she saw him. If she saw him.

  The jotunn smashed his way through the stable yard. Kramer dodged out and fired into its back. The thing howled and jumped across the paddock. The ground shook as it landed and took off at a run. In a moment, she lost sight of it. Kramer ran across the paddock and menage, trying to spot which way the thing was heading. When she got back to the yard, Geordie and Reuben were with Macca.

  “He’s in a bad way,” Geordie said to her. “We need to get him to a hospital soonest.”

  Kramer pointed at Tiny. “Get one of the vehicles around here. You and Reuben can get Macca to the village and get him med-evaced out of here. Geordie and I will track the giant.”

  By the time Tiny pulled up alongside the stable Kramer had found a ladder. They used it as a makeshift stretcher and tied Macca to it using tack from the stables. Macca got pushed in the back of the Land Rover, and Tiny got them out of there on spinning wheels.

  Geordie kicked a horse brush across the yard. “I don’t want to lose anyone else,” he snarled

  “You won’t.”

  “What next?”

  “The jotunn was heading south-west. We track it.”

  “And what’s a jotunn when it’s at home?”

  Kramer sighed. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  ***

  “Lieutenant-Colonel Stanton has no reports of any incidents within the exclusion zone,” Daisy told Ben and Congrave as she entered the latter’s office.

  “Man’s an idiot,” Ben muttered.

  Congrave gave him a sharp glance. “And have you been able to raise Joanne Kramer?”

  “No, sir, but we can track the GPS signal of her phone. They’re onto it now in the Comms Room.”

  “Let’s go,” Congrave said.

  Daisy led them out of the office and surprised Ben by turning left. She walked towards what looked like a blank wall only for a narrow door to open and reveal a narrow spiral staircase.

  “Used by servants back in the day,” she told Ben when she saw his face. “Imagine coming up and down here with trays of food and jugs of hot water.”

  “Is this the boss’s escape route when he wants to avoid me?” Ben asked.

  “How did you guess?” Congrave didn’t sound comfortable as the steeps steps twisted in what felt like tighter and tighter circles.

  Daisy opened another concealed door, and Ben breathed fresher air as they crossed a corridor and entered a former dining room. The Communications Team looked like they had all the best kit. The biggest plasma screen Ben had ever seen dominated one end wall and every one of the fifteen desks held monitors, digital transceivers and run-of-the-mill satellite phones. The plasma screen showed an aerial image of the south-west of England. As Ben got closer, he revised that to a live satellite feed. The image refreshed as it magnified and centred on the north coast of Cornwall. The half-a-dozen men and women clustered around one desk all seemed to be talking at once, and Ben felt the familiar thrill of intelligence agents racing against the clock to identify their target.

  He heard one say, “We’ve got the lock,” and a yellow icon popped up on screen, a few miles inland from the rugged coast edged by white breakers and surf.

  “Is that Kramer?” he asked.

  A couple of faces turned towards him. “Yes. Jo’s not answering calls, but her phone is live and moving.”

  The image closed in. Thin lines resolved as roads and tracks. The patchwork greens and browns of fields looked odd from overhead and without the three-dimensional relief that existed in the real world.

  “It’s one of your satellites,” Congrave said. “The NSA have very kindly let us borrow it while we were studying the Anomaly.”

  “Very kind of them.”

  The icon disappeared as one of the operators switched it off. In its place, Ben could now see a vehicle travelling down a country lane.

  “Army Land Rover, they’re doing about eighty miles-an-hour,” the female operator said.

  “And we’ve no idea why?” Congrave asked.

  “None.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see,” Ben said. “Can we zoom out the image? Try and get an idea where they’re heading?”

  “Or what they’re running from,” a man said.

  The Land Rover slowed, making a sharp right turn into a field. Ben saw a gate break apart as the vehicle forced its way through. Ben searched the image for some clue as to why the car would cross the field. A shadow gave a clue.

  “What’s that?”

  When the people in the room stared blankly at him, Ben walked to the plasma screen and pointed at the shadow. A couple of them came closer.

  “Looks like an engine house,” one of them said.

  “A what?” Ben asked.

  “An engine house to an old mine. It held the equipment that raised and lowered the miners. Cornwall is littered with old mines, mostly tin and copper. It goes back thousands of years.”

  The history lesson didn’t impress Ben. He wanted to know what Kramer was up to. The Land Rover stopped, and two figures emerged. The image zoomed in again, a dizzying swirl of out of focus pixels until it resolved into a clear picture. Ben had to admit to being impressed by the resolution. He could see Kramer’s blonde hair against the darker background of the field. The two figures paused in the shadow of the engine house. Ben wanted to be there. He wanted to be standing next to her.

  The engine house grew, expanding in the blink of an eye as fragments of stone exploded out. Kramer and her companion disappeared in a cloud of dust that reached out like a ravenous monster to consume them. Ben rocked on his feet as if struck by one of the stones. The rush of voices around him merged into a single sound that drove a stake into his heart.

  A
hand grasped his arm, holding him steady. Ben looked at Congrave. He tried to speak, but no words came out. The older man said something that Ben lost in the noise that filled his head. He turned back to the plasma screen, hoping to see some movement, a blonde head emerging untouched from the maelstrom. Anything.

  He saw the dust cloud, drifting in the wind, covering the field and the Land Rover.

  “I’m going down there,” he finally found his voice.

  Congrave nodded. “I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Four

  The twins walked to school from their house on the edge of the village. Daddy worked as a doctor in the local surgery. Mummy looked after them some of the time and painted pictures of flowers for greetings cards the rest of the time. The twins had most of what they wanted. Phones, tablets, clothes, books. They just had to ask and both their parents bought it or paid for it just to keep them quiet. Like now, with their Apple phones out and texting messages to friends.

  Well, not quite friends. More like servants. The twins didn’t do friends. The other children in the village and at their school either did what the twins said or suffered the consequences. Like now, with instructions going out to ignore the new American girl. Anyone who spoke to her, or even smiled at her would feel the wrath of either Elizabeth or Victoria or both. And no-one wanted that. The twins could be cruel, spiteful and vicious. Somehow they got away with it ever since they cut the ponytail off a girl called Imogen back in Reception Class. Poor Imogen had been so proud of her waist length blonde hair, but the big scissors from teacher’s desk drawer made short work of her locks.

  “What are we going to do to her?” Elizabeth asked.

  Victoria sniffed. “Hurt her. I want to see her cry...”

  “The new TA seems to like her.”

  “That’s because they started on the same day.”

  “Shall we try the point and push?”

  “Yeah,” Victoria smiled. Point and push was their favourite. One twin pointed like there was something interesting to see as the other stuck out a leg. A quick push and their victim lay flat on their back, or better still flat on their face.

  They turned off the main footpath into an alleyway that ran alongside the school’s playing field to the main entrance. A woman stood about halfway down. She wore black everything. Boots, jeans, coat. Even her hair seemed to absorb all light as it hung down passed her shoulders. As they got closer, Elizabeth saw the woman wore black lipstick as well. She looked quite beautiful with pale skin and dark eyes that watched the twins approach.

  “Who is she?” Victoria asked. “I’ve not seen her in the village before.”

  Elizabeth thought that maybe she had seen the woman before. She seemed familiar in a way that teased Elizabeth’s memory. The older twin stopped walking. Her sister continued for a few steps before she too stopped,

  “What?” Victoria asked.

  “I’ve seen her before,” her sister said.

  “Where?”

  “In a dream.”

  Victoria laughed. “No you haven’t.”

  Elizabeth moved close to her sister and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I have. Last night. She was in our room.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. She just stood there looking at us.”

  Victoria turned to face the woman who hadn’t moved. The air seemed very still around them, and the noise of traffic had faded to nothing. Victoria frowned, looking around. The alleyway was empty but for the three of them. At a quarter-to-nine, on a school day morning, it usually had a constant stream of parents and children walking to and from the school.

  Silence. No cars. No birds. No children.

  The woman smiled. The twins shivered. She was beautiful, but the girls saw something in her smile they recognised.

  Cruelty.

  Coming closer the woman reached out to brush her fingers through the girls’ hair. The twins stood transfixed. Those eyes held them, pulling them into a world of darkness.

  “Sweet,” the woman said in a soft voice.

  The world became a liquid shadow as it swirled around the twins. Victoria reached out to her sister. They held hands as their excitement grew. No, not excitement. This was different; it felt like Christmas Day and that secret present unwrapped to reveal something they had always wanted. A mix of pleasure and release. They were eleven-years-old and knew what they wanted. Victoria saw the shadows lift and droplets of blood fell like rain; warm, sweet-smelling blood. She smiled.

  Elizabeth took delight in death. Insects, mice, rats and once a cat that stayed too long in their garden. The moment that life ended fascinated her. And the pain. The way the creatures would struggle. The sounds they made. The way their features twisted when they saw the end coming.

  Their parents knew. No-one could have children like the twins in the house and not know. Mummy and Daddy ignored it all. Daddy sometimes talked about them getting counselling. But Mummy wore the trousers in their relationship, and there was no way her babies would have their darkest secrets exposed to anyone, even if the someone in question had doctor-patient confidentiality written through them. No, there would be no counselling for these two. Just the expectation that one day they would go too far and the police would get involved. Daddy reckoned it would be by the time they were fifteen. Mummy said they would grow out of it.

  The shadows lifted. They were back in the alleyway, squeezed between a spiky hedge and a wire-mesh fence. The woman still stroked their hair.

  “Why didn’t you come to my dreams?” Victoria asked.

  “Because it wasn’t a dream. I was in your room, and Elizabeth woke up.”

  “That’s impossible,” Victoria said. “We have burglar alarms on the doors and windows downstairs. You can’t have been in our room.”

  The woman smiled. “Who needs door and windows?”

  “People do,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’m not people.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Names can come later when you show me I can trust you.”

  “How do we do that?” Elizabeth asked. She felt special because she’d woken up and seen the woman in their room.

  “There’s a girl in your class. She’s new.”

  “Emily,” Victoria said.

  “Yes, Emily. I need her hurt.”

  “How much?” Elizabeth’s voice quickened with excitement.

  “Lots and lots.”

  “We can do that, can’t we Vicky?”

  “Yes.”

  “But make sure you don’t get caught,” the woman warned. “And do it in bits. A little hurt, then a bigger one and a bigger one until she screams and screams. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Vicky said.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said.

  “Don’t you want to know what you get as a reward?”

  “There’s a reward?” Vicky asked.

  “Oh, of course, there’s a reward,” the woman said with a smile. “You will become my children, and you will be immortal.”

  ***

  Emily never told her mom about the feelings she got as she ate breakfast. The Cheerios in her bowl seemed to get heavier and heavier. She chewed her way through them. The soggy mass ended up as a solid weight in her stomach. She put on her shoes, grabbed her bag and walked down the garden path to the waiting car. Jane waved her goodbye. Emily tried a smile in return and thought that it must have come out like a grimace.

  The driver worked for Mr Congrave. He said hello and nothing else as he drove the six miles to the village school. Emily didn’t mind the silence. She tried to think about her feeling. It wasn’t like some of the usual visions she got. With those, she could see events, sometimes not accurately but the images in her head gave her guidance about what was going to happen. Today was different. She looked over her shoulder. Two of her angels sat in the back seat, rocking to the motion of the car. They met her gaze, and Emily knew they could feel it as well.

  Dread.

 
She looked forward as the car slowed to match the speed limit through the village. The driver would drop her outside the village store. She’d walk the last part of the journey. If anyone asked, she’d tell them the man in the car was her daddy. She hoped no-one spotted the gun he wore in a concealed underarm holster. That would be difficult to explain in England. As would the armour-plating on the vehicle, the bulletproof glass and steel reinforced tyres.

  “Thank you,” she said as she got out of the car.

  “See you later.”

  She smiled, gave him a shy wave and followed two mothers and three younger children along the footpath. The chill feeling grew as they neared the school.

  Maybe it’s just nerves. My second day. I don’t have any friends, and those twins were horrible yesterday. So it’s nothing to do with my psychic ability. It’s just school nerves.

  She followed adults and children into an alleyway. And now the dread hit her like a sledgehammer. Emily stared ahead. The people in front of her seemed to disappear in the distance as if the alley became a never-ending tunnel filled with darkness. A hand touched her shoulder, the reassurance that her angels still stood at her side. She moved forward, taking one step at a time as the air cooled around her. From somewhere she heard a woman’s voice, singing a wordless tune. Emily looked left and right. She saw figures keeping pace with her. Twisted shapes that limped and writhed but never revealed themselves.

  I’m scared.

  She reached the end of the alley, stepping out into the noise and confusion of the school gate drop-off. The scene looked chaotic to Emily’s young eyes. Most parents were more interested in talking to their friends than seeing to their children. Most children were running or shouting or pulling at their parent’s hands to get their attention.

  Emily walked around the edge of the throng. She recognised a few faces from yesterday; the fat boy with blond hair. An Asian girl and her younger brother, walking hand-in-hand through the school gates.

  On the other side of the gates waited the twins. They sat oat a different desk to Emily, so she didn’t know which one was which. She knew one was Elizabeth and the other Victoria, but that was as far as it got. They knew her, though. She saw the double smile as their eyes met hers. Emily could almost hear their thoughts. Here she comes, like a mouse into a trap.