by Steve Feasey
A film of sweat covered Alexa from head to toe, and she could feel a bead of it snaking its way down her spine as she sat bolt upright on the sofa. The heat was intense, as if she were sitting directly in front of a huge blazing fire. In addition, it was obvious that it was no longer just the mug that had taken on a life of its own. Even with her eyes firmly closed, she sensed that a number of previously inanimate objects were in orbit in the air all around her. Indeed, the air itself crackled and hummed with energy, adding to the discomfort and apprehension she was feeling. But all of these things occurred to her as if the thoughts belonged to another person – as if she were not really occupying her own body any more.
The purple fox-monkey-thing was eager to be put to use. It ran around in tight little circles or jumped about wildly, and Alexa knew that she couldn’t contain it for much longer – not without undoing all of her hard work. So she concentrated one last time and sent the thing out – set the spell free of her body and mind, and loose into the world beyond where it had but one job: to find Trey Laporte.
Alexa’s mind and body were suddenly reunited. She felt herself become whole again, and with this sensation came a great wave of exhaustion which elicited an unexpected gasp from her. She opened her eyes and looked about her at the chaos she had created.
The apartment looked as if it had been at the epicentre of some terrible earthquake, either that or a tornado had ravaged the room. Charred furniture was tossed all about the place, ornaments were smashed, curtains torn from their poles. The smoked glass coffee table had a huge crack in it, and there were ugly black and grey scorch marks in the thick white carpet. The leather sofa beneath her was scorched too, and she let out a little whistle as she realized that she herself was completely untouched. Still, Alexa dreaded to think what her father would say when he saw the damage. She froze then, her heart sinking a little at this last thought. She knew there was a good chance that her father might never get the opportunity to see the inside of the apartment, or anywhere else for that matter, ever again, and this thought brought with it a deep despair which she knew, should she give in to it, could be the undoing of her.
She was so very tired.
She tried to fix her thoughts on the spell, but it was impossible. She was close to utter exhaustion, and could hardly hold her head up any longer. Despite her attempts to keep them open, she could feel her eyes begin to close. She whimpered a little, hating the loss of control, but had to give in finally. Her eyelids came down like shutters, and she slumped over to one side.
Within moments she was fast asleep.
17
Alexa urged herself to move. She could hear the rasping breath of the thing behind her. It was travelling quickly, and would be upon her any second. But her feet were rooted to the spot. She tried to turn to get a look at whatever it was that was bearing down on her, but she couldn’t – her head, like her legs, refused to obey her commands, and she was forced to stare straight ahead.
It was almost upon her. She could feel the heat coming from its body and sense the dark malevolence it directed towards her.
In that dream place, somewhere between deep sleep and waking, Alexa frowned. She could feel the soft leather of the sofa beneath her cheek, and she knew exactly where she was. The nightmarish scene and the fear that came with it began to fade. She kept her eyes closed and concentrated on holding on to the images. Because the terror had not been hers, it had been Trey’s. She was seeing these things through him, and she had to try and maintain that bond somehow.
Trey?
She reached out to him, holding on to the tiny thread that linked the two of them now that the locating spell had found him. She concentrated hard on that connection, aware that it could break at any moment.
Trey, it’s me, Alexa.
There was no response. A blank nothingness greeted her. Had her spells worked properly?
Trey. Please talk to me.
She waited, and was about to try again, when she sensed something reaching back out to her. She concentrated.
Alexa?
She held on to that small voice, focusing all of her efforts on maintaining the link with it.
Yes, Trey. It’s me.
A series of patterns and colours, most of which were dark and sinister, formed in her mind’s eye: jagged, hard lines against blacks and greys. But there was something else, something brighter behind the harsh forms, and she sensed that Trey was unwilling to believe she was with him in case it proved to be another trick played on him by the hallucinations he was obviously suffering from.
It really is me. You are not imagining this. I’m trying to find you. Are you OK?
Strange images popped into her mind. Images of werewolves running through a vast forest, hunting together as a pack. An image of her as she’d looked when they’d met that first time after her father had rescued him from death in the care home and brought him back to London. A man who, judging from the resemblance to Trey, must have been his father, stood looking back at her, flames licking at his skin as he did so. And then the terrifying image of Caliban filled her head, and it was as much as she could do not to sever the connection between the two of them as the vampire opened his mouth impossibly wide and lunged towards her with those terrible fangs.
She forced herself to remain calm, and tried to help Trey do the same by pushing reassuring thoughts and images back along the connection in Trey’s direction.
Where are you?
Another jumbled and chaotic series of images flashed through her mind’s eye.
Trey, I need you to concentrate. Please. I need you to give me some clue as to where you are.
She was back in the forest. Thousands of identical trees surrounded her on all sides. They seemed unending. Everything was still under the dark canopy. And then out of the woods came a huge white wolf, its cobalt blue eyes standing out in stark contrast against the sea of brown and green all around.
Alexa knew who the wolf was. She’d seen those eyes before.
Where, Trey? Where has she got you?
The forest disappeared and she was standing on a London street. A black taxi cab drew up alongside her. It was packed full of nether-creatures: demons and djinn of all sorts filled every inch of the interior, their faces jammed up against the glass as they stared out at her. And suddenly she was in the midst of them. Sitting on the floor of the cab, their faces and hands and legs and bodies all pressed against her. The noise was terrible as they screamed and wailed and gnashed their teeth.
The taxi stopped suddenly and the back door flew open. The demons poured out of the vehicle like a thick and viscous liquid, dragging her along with them as they spilt out on to the ground, jabbering and screaming at the top of their lungs.
She looked about her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing against the chaotic images. There was a dilapidated old building up ahead, neglected and disintegrating under the rust that attacked it from all sides but there was little to distinguish it from thousands of others that must exist in the city.
Then the sign caught her eye. It was difficult to see at first, the metal it had been printed on having suffered the same fate as the walls on which it was mounted. But there was a name there: Caulden & Son Ltd.
The scene went black.
Hold on, Trey. I’m coming for you.
Alexa broke the connection between them. She sat up, and winced at the thumping pain that the movement set off in her head.
She needed to drink. She was terribly dehydrated and felt even weaker than when she had first given in to the exhaustion earlier, but she pulled herself to her feet and made her way over to the kitchen. In spite of everything a small smile touched the edges of her mouth.
She had the clue she needed to find Trey and the werewolf bitch who was holding him against his will.
18
It had only been moments since the huge sonic boom, accompanied by the shockwave, had spread outward from the dark tower. Robert Holt was still by the burger van, down on his haunc
hes, hugging his son to him and telling the boy that everything was going to be all right. He could hear the doubt in his own voice.
The air was filled with the sounds of screaming and yelling. Somebody was shouting in a loud voice for people to remain calm, but the advice wasn’t being heeded. A small child was crying somewhere in the crowd, its high-pitched, plaintive wails rising above the rest of the noise.
‘What the hell is going on?’ somebody yelled in a voice filled with anger and fear. The question was echoed by others. ‘Do something!’ another added. Robert stood to look for the source of the noise. Two police officers off to his right were surrounded by an angry mob of people demanding to know what was happening. Both of the officers were thumbing the buttons on the side of their radios, shouting out for somebody, anybody, to answer. Behind them another policewoman on horseback was doing the same.
Robert took his mobile phone out of his pocket and frowned at the blank screen. It was fully charged – he’d made sure of that before he left the house this morning – but the thing appeared now to be completely dead. He glanced about him, noting how the illuminated shop signs were all out, the interiors of those premises that had stayed open on the match day also dark. He glanced at the police again. The disbelieving look on their faces matched that of everyone else around them; nobody had any idea what to do, Robert was sure about that. The other thing he was sure about was that this … thing, whatever it was, posed an immediate threat to him and his son. He cast his eyes about him at the crowd, surprised at the number of people who were simply standing gawking up at the tower and the purple sky, albeit with a wide-eyed look of astonishment and horror.
Making his mind up, he stood and took his son’s hand firmly in his own.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Jake nodded up at him, and they began to make their way through the onlookers. Others had had the same idea, and they fought their way through the crowd together, heading back in the direction they’d come. Despite the congestion, they made surprisingly good progress. Robert had been an amateur boxer in his youth – a heavyweight – and his size and appearance meant that although he got a few looks from the people he manhandled out of the way, few actually said anything.
‘Look!’ a woman in the crowd suddenly shouted, pointing at the base of the tower which was now about forty metres behind them.
At the sound of the woman’s voice Robert glanced back over his shoulder and caught sight of what she’d seen.
In the midst of the mass of solid black rock, a large, rectangular area was ‘shimmering’, as if the very molecules which held the stone together were becoming dislodged, changing from a solid to something more akin to a liquid. His inner voice told Robert that whatever was happening, it was bad, and he redoubled his efforts to get through the crowds, raising his voice and ordering people to allow him and his son through.
He could tell that some of those around him had not witnessed the actual arrival of the tower, missing its appearance until now, as they walked towards the stadium up the Fulham Road. A woman to Robert’s right turned to her husband, a wide-eyed look of amazement on her face.
‘Do you think it’s an alien invasion?’ she said.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he growled back at her. ‘It’s some kind of stunt. That rich Russian owner’s cooked it up. You watch – it’ll turn out to be some kind of advertising thing.’
‘But look at the size of it!’ she said.
‘It’s a trick, I tell you. Mirrors or something!’
‘I dunno …’
There was a sudden push of people from Robert’s right and his hand was wrenched clear of Jake’s. He stumbled to one side a little, only just managing to stay on his feet. He turned, bellowing his son’s name, a gut-twisting panic gripping him as he realized Jake might have fallen. He was a good head taller than most of those around him, but he could not make out where Jake was.
‘Dad!’
He heard his son’s voice calling him from somewhere off to his left, and he dived through the crowd, wrenching and pulling at those around him in his panic to get to his boy. And then suddenly there he was. Jake had sensibly grabbed hold of a concrete rubbish bin set into the pavement, and was clinging on to it.
Robert bent down and picked the youngster up.
‘Put me down, Dad. I’m too heavy for you to carry.’
Robert ignored the boy and the pain in his back as he straightened up. He turned his head to glance again at the door that had appeared in the citadel’s black stone wall. Because it was a door. It was no longer in its liquid form, it was a black, gaping maw now, and some of the people right at the front of the crowd had gingerly crept forward to peer into the darkness, to see if they could make out what lay within.
Robert heard the first scream before the creatures appeared.
Then he saw them.
He gasped, pulling Jake’s head into his shoulder to block out any view the child might have of the things that charged out of the gap.
That they were zombies, he had little doubt. Even from this distance he knew nothing could have survived the terrible wounds those creatures had suffered and still be alive in any conventional sense. Both appeared to have had their throats torn out; long ragged ribbons of flesh hung down below their chins and flapped about as they ran. The undead creature that had once been a man also had a huge gaping hole in his face. But no blood came from the wounds. Robert was surprised how quickly they moved. None of the shambling and shuffling stuff of movies – these creatures tore into the crowd before them, biting and slashing and rending anything in their path, often grabbing on to the next victim and pulling them into a deadly embrace even before the last one was dead.
Thankful that he and Jake had got a head start on most of the crowd, Robert pressed on. But everyone was running now. The mass of people had transformed from fascinated onlookers to panic-stricken escapees in the blink of an eye, and were charging about in every direction, desperate to get away. Some dragged those in front of them back so that they could take their place, and many fell beneath the feet of the stampeding horde, their screams echoing those of the unfortunates already in the zombies’ clutches.
Robert tried to push his legs faster, but the weight of his son in his arms stopped him. As if sensing this, Jake shook his head free from beneath his father’s hand and looked up at him. ‘I can run,’ he said. ‘Put me down. Please!’
Robert nodded, and lowered the boy to the floor. The crowd was streaming past them now, and they were both almost knocked over again as they stood in its tide. They held hands once more, and Robert saw an unexpected look on the boy’s face: that of determination.
They set off, keeping a tight grip on each other.
They ran straight up the centre of the road, pumping their legs and gasping for breath as the adrenalin coursed through their bloodstream. But when they caught sight of what lay ahead, they slowed, as those around them had done, staring in disbelief. They watched as the fastest runners, those who had got way ahead of the rest of the crowd, went crashing into what could only be some sort of invisible barrier. They ran headlong into it and stuck for a moment, their bodies jerking violently as if struck by a lightning bolt, before being thrown backwards to the ground where they then lay, unmoving. Robert could see this happening across the width of the road and pavement. Looking to his right, up an arterial road, he could see the same thing happening – people slamming into an unseen barricade, only to be forcefully thrown back to the concrete as lifeless mannequins.
‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Jake asked, the terror in his voice causing it to go up in pitch so that the boy screamed the question at his father.
Robert snapped his attention straight ahead again as he caught sight of a police van speeding up the road towards them. Its blue lights were on, but it occurred to Robert that he could not hear the engine or the sound of the tyres or, indeed, the siren he was certain would be accompanying those flashing bulbs.
The
driver was gesticulating out of the front window for the people inside the invisible barrier to get out of the way, and sure enough a number did so, grabbing and pulling at those nearest to them to make a path for the vehicle to pass through. The route clear, the police vehicle sped up, and Robert watched as it came to the point in the road where the force field – for he was convinced that was what it must be – separated the two sides. He instinctively ducked as the van crashed into the invisible wall, its front caving inward under the impact, its occupants jolted sickeningly forward against their seat belts as airbags exploded.
There was no sound from the crash. The only noise that came to Robert’s ears was that of the screams and shouts all around him as people realized they were trapped. Trapped inside an invisible barrier. With zombies.
He felt Jake tugging at his hand, and looked down at the boy. His son pointed off to his left. A man was standing in a shop doorway no more than three metres away. He beckoned at them, silently urging them to hurry. They ran in his direction.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, looking over their shoulders at the sea of people. ‘Quickly!’
They glanced at each other for a moment before stepping inside. As soon as they’d passed him, the old man quickly closed the door, throwing two bolts, top and bottom, to lock it. The inside of the door had a protective metal mesh covering the glass.
‘I couldn’t leave you out there,’ the man said, turning to them. He had a long measuring tape draped round his neck, and one brief glance at the interior confirmed to Robert that they were inside a tailor’s shop. ‘Not with a youngster, I couldn’t.’ He looked out through the glass pane of the door again before pulling a curtain across. He turned to face them.
‘I’ve been through it all before,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’ Robert managed. ‘Been through what?’
‘The war. The Nazis! That’s what they are, these hooligans: Nazis!’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘They’ve smashed my shop windows up on more than one occasion. That was in the bad old days, when they were everywhere. Great gangs of them fighting in the streets. Skinheads in jackboots.’ He looked at Jake and nodded his head as if to insist that he was speaking the truth. ‘Now it looks like they’re back.’
