by WR Armstrong
“Do you like Ferry?” he asked, cranking up the volume.
“A bit before my time,” she said, stifling a yawn. She was sleepy from the effects of the journey, hardly able to keep her eyes open.
“Mine too,” the anthropologist agreed. “Then again, one doesn’t have to be born in the dark ages in order to appreciate the ancient Egyptians.” He smiled, apparently pleased with his witticism.
Kate took his point, offering a listless smile in return. She began to surrender to tiredness and closed her eyes as Ferry sang “Street Life”. A few minutes later she felt woozy and uncomfortable. She reopened her eyes and was filled with panic as she imagined that the car was hurtling out of control, the road ahead rocketing towards her at break neck speed.
She glanced over at Chrichton, convinced his speed was excessive, vocalising her concern, and in that instant became aware of an obvious slur in her speech. She felt so terribly tired. She glanced at the car’s speedometer and was surprised to see that they were well within the speed limit, yet the car seemed to be travelling so terribly fast. It must be her imagination, she decided. God, she had never felt so tired, and she felt sick into the bargain, enough so to make her consider asking Chrichton to pull over. The inside of her stomach felt horribly thick and swollen. She was developing a blinding headache.
She thought Chrichton said something but wasn’t sure. With a tremendous effort she managed to turn her head to look at him. He was laughing. Why would he be laughing? The music seemed to be fading or was it her imagination again? She had no way of being sure. She was losing focus on reality. The music was almost inaudible to her ears, yet she hadn’t seen Chrichton alter the control settings. It was as if she were losing her sense of hearing. And the headache was growing worse, turning into a skull splitting migraine. God, she felt so ill!
She fought to keep her eyes open but they drooped disobediently. Her vision was bleary. She blinked but could not focus. Her head was spinning. Unbearable pain seared her temples and the base of her neck. They still travelled the motorway, she realised, although everything was far too hazy and disjointed to take in clearly, even the big blue road signs she found unreadable. What the hell was wrong with her? She wondered dimly if she might not have contracted food poisoning from the sandwiches she had eaten at the service station. Or was it something to do with the coffee, though she had never heard of anyone suffering adversely from the intake of coffee, other than becoming dependent on caffeine. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, so quickly she feared she might be experiencing a heart attack.
Was Chrichton speaking again? She couldn’t decide. Everything seemed so disjointed. She could hear the growl of the car engine through the hazy cloud that affected her sense of reality, but that was all. She could no longer hear the music though she was sure the CD player hadn’t been switched off. Then Chrichton’s voice did filter through to her brain. He was saying something she didn’t quite understand. Something about it being over soon—the pain—he was spouting some rubbish about the pain of life and the joys of the hereafter. She failed to grasp the meaning. She managed to swing her head round so she faced him. It took a supreme effort to even blink her eyes by now. Chrichton was talking all right. She could see his mouth opening and closing, reminding her of a grounded fish. He seemed uncharacteristically happy and carefree. I’m sick, she wanted to scream! Why can’t you see that I’m sick! He was paying her no attention, ignoring her in fact. What the hell was he talking about now? He was prattling on about love and being together for eternity. Now he was telling her about the contents of the manuscript, but she failed to comprehend what she was being told. She felt delirious. She was also frightened out of her wits, afraid Chrichton had, for his own insane reasons, drugged her! She told herself to calm down, that she was being hysterical.
She heard herself telling him to stop talking, aware her voice sounded unnaturally weak and ineffectual, as if she was speaking inside her head instead of outside of it. She tried again, feeling her vocal cords strain tightly. Chrichton glanced at her. Smiling, the bastard was smiling, appearing to enjoy her discomfort. If only she could disgorge whatever poison was inside of her, she was sure she would begin to feel well again. But she was already slipping away. She felt helpless. She realised that Chrichton was smiling still. It was a smile that was cruel and knowing.
She opened her mouth to speak. Her lips felt numb. Words formed awkwardly.
“What have you done to me?” she heard herself say from what seemed like another time and dimension. Chrichton suddenly confirmed her worst fears. He advised her to surrender to sleep. “When you wake up you’ll be as right as rain. We’ll have plenty of time to talk when you wake up, all the time in the world in fact.” This time he smiled as if his words held irony. Mad, Kate thought horrified. He was stark raving mad!
Slouched in the seat, she tried to raise herself up but her muscles refused to work.
“What have you done to me you bastard!” Had she spoken those words or merely thought them?
She must have thought them, for this time Chrichton ignored her, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the road. Her strength was ebbing dangerously. Her heavy eyelids fluttered and she lost focus completely. Suddenly the pain and the discomfort was passing, yet for a reason she could not understand it frightened her more than Chrichton’s reaction to her discomfort.
She slumped against the passenger door. Her head lolled forward. Scared and helpless, hating the man more than she ever imagined she could hate anyone, she began to pass out. The thought that she could do nothing to reverse the situation terrified her. She tried desperately to lift her hand but had not the strength to do even that. The notion that she was dying entered her head, giving rise to intense panic. She felt so incredibly exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep. Sleep forever.
She drifted away, while beside her Chrichton sang off key to the sounds of Roxy Music and James Morrison, unconcerned by his passenger’s ailing condition. The drug with which he had laced her coffee was called flunitrazepam, known commercially as Rohypnol, which had a history of use in cases of date rape, causing the victim to fall into states of unconsciousness, coma and even death. It was a reliable, uncomplicated way to subdue your victim.
Chrichton drove onwards towards London with Kate unconscious in the seat next to him, oblivious to the danger of her predicament. The prospect of sharing all eternity with her elated the anthropologist. She would bear his children. His off spring would never know the pain of aging or disease, or the agony and indignity of old age and the eternal emptiness of death itself. They would go on forever: Dorian Gray’s all of them. And down through the generations it would go, their kind inbreeding with the living until the two species became synonymous, and a world of the living dead was born. Humankind would march on into infinity, unrivalled. Chrichton marvelled at the wonders that might be experienced during the span of his unending life. Such unending pleasure! Such miracles he would witness, he and Kate both. She would thank him for ending her mortal existence.
His mind turned to the manuscript. The outside world could never be privy to its true meaning. He would have to doctor his notes, give Carrington and the rest of the team a watered down version of what he had learned. Doubtless the manuscript would be reviewed as the excavation progressed, examined by other experts, but by then it would not matter. He and Kate would be starting their new “life” together.
The contents of the cryptically coded manuscript had been a mystery for centuries. The language used was as old as the gods themselves, originating from a time when Christianity was unheard of. A time when the “Dark ones” roamed restlessly through the land, building monuments to pagan gods, the sign of the cross their protector: its magical influence providing them with a gateway into another world. Down through the centuries its secret had been largely forgotten. Man’s increasing scepticism of things unworldly denying him the opportunity to benefit from its esoteric power.
Night had fallen by the time they arrived in London
. It was cold and misty. Chrichton brought the car to a stop outside the house, in which he had lived alone since the death of his mother, and switched off the engine. He checked Kate’s pulse and found it to be faint and erratic. She was struggling to hold onto life. He got out of the car. The street was deserted. Nevertheless he decided to exert caution by parking the car in the big old garage standing at the bottom of the drive to the rear of the house. He hurried along the drive, shivering against the creeping cold. Glancing back over his shoulder he saw Kate sitting inside the Rover resembling a weary traveller who had simply fallen asleep. Arriving at the garage he fished the house keys from the pocket of his sports coat. He fumbled in the dark for the right key, found it and unlocked the heavy padlock securing the wooden doors. Once inside he switched on the light.
And then he smiled.
In the far corner, anchored firmly to the wall, stood a wooden cross, large enough to support the body of an adult human being. Lying nearby on a workbench once used industriously by his late father, and where he himself occupied much of his time wood carving, was a collection of work tools including a hammer that he recalled his father using to make him a go cart when he was a kid. He picked it up, studied it briefly, and then put it back down. It had also been used to help build the cross he intended crucifying his drugged passenger up on.
He returned to the car with the voices murmuring softly inside his head. Close, he was so very close to success. Kate had not stirred in his absence. She sat motionless with her head leaning against the inside of the window, eyes shut. He joined her inside the vehicle and started the engine. He manoeuvred the car into the drive, approaching the garage at a crawl.
Once inside he closed the heavy double doors. He rounded the car and opened the passenger door. Kate fell limply into his waiting arms. Holding her aroused passions in him he found hard to resist. He lifted her from the vehicle and carried her over to the workbench, hauling her onto its cold wooden surface, positioning her on her back, having to move aside a lump hammer and hack saw to make room. He checked the huge wooden cross he had handcrafted for the occasion. The two cross sections were expertly tongue and grooved into place. Sturdy building screws were used to secure the two planks of hard wood into position. A footrest, carved from a solid block of oak wood had been added near the foot of the vertical column, and leather straps were fixed in precise accordance with where his victim’s hands and feet would be positioned.
Chrichton gazed proudly at his workmanship, imagining Kate’s naked form bound to the contraption. When she emerged from the dark shadow of death he would be there to welcome her back to the world of the living. She would be indebted to him for all eternity, and do unto him as he had done onto her, thereby blessing him with eternal life
He checked her pulse, a little stronger than before, and then walked over to the cross and stole a few moments to admire his workmanship. His father would have been proud of him, he was sure. He returned his attention to the workbench, and to Kate, and was horrified to find her gone.
“What the...”
“Looking for me, Abe?”
He spun round just in time to see the hammer descend.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
McGrath found it difficult to concentrate or motivate himself which was sorely out of character. He wondered around the house aimlessly. That morning he had failed to train. Normally wild horses wouldn’t stop him. It was all because of the misunderstanding he had had with Kate. It was ridiculous to allow a minor altercation to damage a relationship he valued so greatly. He had given her hypothesis great thought since he’d last seen her, and had finally come round to her way of thinking. The reasons she had given to explain the ritualistic murders and brutal attacks in London were almost impossible to ignore.
Two more bodies had been discovered in the past twenty-four hours, one in Chelsea where that of a man was found at the foot of a handcrafted cross used to restrain either him or another, the second belonging to a Singaporean woman from Charring Cross. Both corpses were cannibalised. Interesting was the fact that both murder victims had a connection with the burial pit, having been on the ill fated tube train destroyed by the explosion that had subsequently exposed the pit. The police had issued a statement published in yesterday’s edition of “The Evening Standard”, that suggested the two latest murders were copycat killings. The general public viewed the explanation as weak and implausible. At the present time the authorities were trying to trace all the survivors of the tube crash in order to ascertain their mental states. The reconstruction team was receiving counselling as a number of them were convinced the underground was cursed due to its association with the burial pit. A psychologist who had been brought in specifically for that purpose and at great expense to the transport executive was also monitoring the situation.
It was early evening when McGrath entered his study determined to speak to Kate, and make amends. Picking up the phone he pondered what he would say, finally deciding to come straight to the point and apologise in the hope she was big enough to forgive and forget. There was no reply from her home number. Maybe the assignment had been extended, forcing her to prolong her stay, McGrath mused. He tried her mobile and was put straight through to message bank. He left a brief message requesting she return his call, and then deliberated on his next move.
He was desperate to resolve the problem tonight if at all possible. Had the situation in the underground not been so serious he might have driven back to Lindon. But that really wasn’t an option. This morning two more reconstruction workers had called in sick, which meant his team was severely over stretched. He hated things being left up in the air but there seemed precious little he could do about it. To cap it all Wilkinson was still off sick. Altogether, over a dozen men were absent from work. Nevertheless he was desperate to make contact. It wasn’t just the fact that he wanted to reconcile the situation between them, he realised. He wanted to be there for Kate, to protect her if the need arose.
He telephoned Linden Rectory and got Father Rinaldi who informed him that she had left for London the previous day in the company of Chrichton. Next he dialled the number of The Dempster Foundation on the off chance that she was there. She wasn’t: her apartment then? It took the best part of twenty minutes to fight his way through the heavy evening traffic.
He gained entry using a key Kate had given to him. Once inside he quickly checked for any sign of her. Again he was out of luck. She had been absent for a while in fact. Mail littered the hall floor. The fridge needed restocking, her answer phone contained messages dating back to the beginning of the previous week. McGrath looked out of the living room window overlooking the car park adjoining the apartment block, and spotted her car. Where the hell are you he wondered? His concern growing, he decided to check out Chrichton’s home address, see if she was there. He found it in the phone book. As luck would have it, the anthropologist lived less than three blocks away.
Five minutes later he was parked across the street from Chrichton’s house, which was a large, double fronted Victorian affair. A car was absent from the drive but he could see a large garage towards the rear of the house where a car might be concealed. A van passed by at speed. An elderly couple happened by walking their dog. He waited until the coast was clear before making his way over. The house was in darkness, and looked deserted.
He knocked the front door but failed to get a reply. He scooted round to the back, passing the garage as he went. Here he paused, noticing the wooden doors were slightly ajar, revealing the back bumper of a motor vehicle.
He ventured inside and searched unsuccessfully for a light switch. As he did so his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark. That was the moment he saw the towering cross in the far corner. Immediately he feared for Kate’s life, for its existence seemed to serve as irrefutable evidence that Chrichton too had been touched by the madness infesting the underground. That being the case, McGrath thought anxiously, where the devil was the anthropologist? More importantly, what had he done to Ka
te!
He searched the garage for vital clues. The bonnet of the car was warm indicating it had been in recent use. Had Chrichton driven Kate here, he wondered frantically. If so, where were they now? A sound from behind distracted him. He spun and through the murky darkness glimpsed a raised hammer. The blow, when it came, sent him crashing back against the car, where he struggled to remain on his feet.
Further blows caught him on the head and chest. Although badly stunned McGrath rallied, initiating a counter attack whereby he succeeded in disarming his attacker, before bringing them to heel using a debilitating arm lock.
“Game’s up,” he said, exerting serious pressure. “Now, who the hell are you?”
A choked voice suddenly cut through the air. “Let go of me, you’re hurting!” It was Kate!
Shocked by the revelation, he released his hold and spun her round so she faced him. He could see very little in the darkness: the outline of a head, the vague impression of a face, little else. “What the hell do you think you’re doing,” he snapped, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. “You could have killed me!”
“I’m so sorry,” she said unsteadily. “I thought you were Chrichton, returned.”
“You’ve got some serious explaining to do,” he retorted as he frog marched her from the garage. Outside where the light was marginally better, it quickly became apparent to him that something terrible had happened to her. She was covered in blood and bore a nasty neck injury in the form of a jagged gash just below the jaw line.
He stared open mouthed. “Jesus, Kate, you look ghastly!” He brushed a hand across her cheek, unbelieving of the state she was in. Her skin was cool and clammy, which he put down to shock.
“What happened to you?”
She appeared to be in a confused state, but nevertheless managed to explain how Chrichton had abducted her using drugs, with the intention of murdering her and crucifying her body in the hope that she would be resurrected.
