Darker

by Simon Clark

  Christ. A pang hit him in the stomach. Oh Christ. It wants me.

  The red Volvo nearly hit him.

  Joey’s red face appeared in the side window. He screamed, ‘Get in!’

  He slammed himself into the passenger seat. The car jerked, pushing him back into the seat, tyres ripped at Tarmac, they were bouncing in an arc over a strip of grass between lay-by and road, then they were powering away from it all. Richard looked back, almost paralyzed with shock. The trailer, a jumble of plywood, plastic and cooking oil, burned, smearing an otherwise perfect blue sky with filthy-looking smoke.

  For the first time he realized Michael was driving.

  Richard looked down at his clenched fists. One was running with red. After the third attempt he managed to unclench his fist. And he saw he still held the carton of blackcurrant. Only at some point he’d crushed it until it ruptured.

  Michael glanced sideways at Richard. This time there was no smile, only a deeply troubled look.

  Richard groaned. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘It’s what I was afraid of.’ He looked at Richard. ‘You’ve become infected, too.’

  Chapter 27

  Cat and Mouse

  ‘Infected?’ said Richard. ‘Exactly what to you mean by infected?’

  Michael accelerated into the motorway’s fast lane. ‘I mean you’re infected. You’re all infected like me.’

  Richard turned to look at Christine in the back seat. With one arm around Amy she leaned forward to hear what Michael was saying. Joey looked as if what he’d seen and heard had been too much to get his head round. Face as white as paper, he leaned back staring at the car’s ceiling with eyes so deepset they looked like a pair of bullet holes.

  Christine said, ‘So this thing will follow us? It’ll —’

  ‘It’ll do to us …’ When Richard spoke the words didn’t come easily. ‘It’ll do to us what it did to those two cops back there?’

  Michael nodded, his eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘Jesus …’ Richard whispered. ‘I was responsible for that. If I hadn’t gone back to buy that drink they’d still be alive.’

  ‘If anyone’s to blame,’ Michael said, ‘It’s me. I should have seen it coming. Well, to be precise, sensed it coming. But I didn’t.’ Troubled, he rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand. ‘I should have realized. But it’s changing … evolving … it’s become unpredictable.’

  ‘Look,’ said Christine, eager for the truth. ‘You’ve told us we’re infected. By that I take it we’ve got to keep moving or it will catch up with us.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But how do we get rid of it?’

  The man looked at her in the rearview mirror. ‘We don’t.’

  Richard clenched his fist. ‘But what the hell is it?’

  ‘To explain fully,’ Michael said, ‘I’d need to sit you down at a desk and talk to you for six months. But, in a nutshell, it is POWER. It is the power that emperors and kings have used for thousands of years; it was probably used by prehistoric war lords before the last Ice Age when men lived in caves and wrapped themselves in animal skins.’ He looked sideways at Richard. ‘This power is a separate entity. A lifeform as individual as an elephant or a fish. In that church in Turkey it passed into me. From that day on I found I had this power to inspire anyone I met. It was when I attempted to bring that power to Britain that it all went wrong.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Its natural habitat is the Eastern end of the Mediterranean. Now it’s separated itself from me. And I’m guessing here, but I think it wants to go back?’

  ‘So, do what it wants. Take it back.’

  ‘I only wish to God I could.’ Michael gave a tired smile. ‘That’s why it’s pursuing me. But there’s no way I can communicate with it. The thing’s like a raging bull.’

  ‘What are we going to do? We can’t drive round the country for ever.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, I’ve got some people working on it. They’ll come up with an answer soon.’

  ‘An answer? You mean you can —’

  ‘Please, Richard. We need to sit down and talk this through when our minds are clear. Then I’ll explain whatever I can. At the moment, though, this is a bloody dangerous situation.’

  Christine said, ‘But we’re safe if we can keep driving?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what about stopping to sleep? Buy petrol?’

  ‘And what if we end up stuck in a traffic jam?’ asked Richard.

  Michael shrugged. ‘Pray that we don’t.’

  ‘Look,’ Richard said. ‘We can solve this easy. Drive to the nearest police station.’

  Michael shook his head. ‘You’re not thinking this through, Richard. You saw what happened in Pontefract and at the lay-by. If we go to the police they’re going to put us through some pretty rigorous questioning. So we’re going to be confined to one location. What happens when that thing comes? Do you say, ‘Sorry, can’t answer any more questions, I’ve got to run like hell now?’ No. They’ll keep us there; under lock and key if necessary. And that’s where we’ll die. With everyone else in the police station, too.’

  ‘Christ, this is a nightmare.’

  ‘Yes, it is a nightmare.’ Michael spoke calmly. ‘But we’ll get through this if you do exactly as I say.’

  Christine sighed. ‘I don’t suppose we have a choice.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Michael agreed. ‘These are the facts: one, you’re infected. If anyone tries to go their own way, it’ll find you and kill you. Simple as that. Therefore, two: we must stick close together at all times. Three: it’s likely the police have linked this red Volvo with the two incidents this morning. We have to assume that they will be looking for us now. If only, as they so reassuringly put it, to eliminate us from their enquiries.’ He glanced back at Christine through the mirror. ‘So, again, we must assume that basically we are now on the run from the police as well. We mustn’t allow ourselves to be stopped by the police. If we fail, the thing that follows us will kill us and it will kill them.’

  ‘This thing … this … power. Does it have a name?’

  Michael smiled. ‘No. Not as such. But I think of it as ‘the Beast.’

  ‘The Beast? Christ, that’s reassuring as hell.’

  In the passenger seat, Richard turned to look back at Amy. She stared forward, statue-still, her eyes glassy and tired-looking. Four years old. Already she was on the run from the police. And running from something they could not see, but that might stamp the life from them in the next ten seconds.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Michael said soothingly. ‘I’ve been outrunning this thing for the last five weeks. As I said, I have a team of people working on a solution. As soon as we have that you can go home.’

  Richard licked his dry lips. ‘Well, you better come up with something in the next five minutes.’

  The man shot him a puzzled look.

  Richard nodded at the petrol gauge. ‘Because any minute now we’re going to run out of petrol.’

  Chapter 28

  Shadow Thoughts

  The train clunked over a level crossing. Even this slight jolt rocked Rosemary’s head enough to raise pain, flaring from the stitched wound on the side of her face.

  Drowsily she opened her eyes. Sunlight burst in brilliant flashes from greenhouses in gardens.

  Although Pontefract lay just twenty minutes away, she found it hard to stay awake. Her wasted muscles were exhausted from the walk from the hospital to the station.

  Now as she drifted in and out of sleep on the train she found herself looking through the little girl’s eyes again. The images made little sense. A roadside diner. A tyre swing. Climbing frame. The roadside diner bursting like a balloon, spraying bread rolls and broken glass onto the road. A wrecked car. Brilliant sunshine. A child’s climbing frame. A police car. Her father running. Her father? No, not Rosemary’s father. But she knew it was the girl’s father. The girl called … Amy. That was it. Amy Young, age four, wi
th a brother, and a taste for toffee ice cream and Tom and Jerry cartoons.

  Now, in the back of a car, she sat between her mother and a man. Amy’s mother leaned forward talking urgently to someone in the front seat. Her hair blew back in the breeze from the open window.

  The other man by her side looked ill. He rested his head back and stared up at the car’s ceiling. He had a face that was so heavy with flesh it wobbled as the car rode over bumps.

  Rosemary sensed the little girl’s fear.

  The train jolted again. Rosemary winced at the pull of the stitches in her face. She opened her eyes. Just in front of her the carriage ended in a wall of plastic laminate, on which had been printed a mural showing paintings of local scenes. There were the cooling towers of a power station, Wakefield Cathedral, a shopping mall, a castle ruin.

  As she stared drowsily at it her eyes slipped out of focus. She heard the stranger’s voice saying over and over: ‘I was afraid this would happen. You’re infected, too … you’re infected, too … you’re infected, too …’

  In front of her, the mural seemed to grow transparent. As if the ruined castle and church were painted on dark glass. She imagined she could see a shape moving beyond it.

  Her Destroyer.

  The rhythm of steel wheels on the track and her own weariness lulled her into a state that was hypnotic.

  Beyond the laminate panel the shadow moved. Now, and without any sense of surprise, she knew it had always been like this. The world she’d known: the world of cars, houses, streets, schools, factories, supermarkets, parks, tables, kitchens … the world was like that thin laminate panel with its painted castle and church and power station. Behind those familiar images was another world, a world that was at the same time weirdly unfamiliar, and yet familiar in a way that was disturbing – even frightening. A world where some shadowy form prowled restlessly backwards and forwards.

  As she dozed she found herself pitched back a dozen years or more to a springtime morning when her father had taken her out to sea in his boat. They must have been a mile off shore when he called her in a hushed voice, ‘Rosie … Rosie. Quick! Look what’s down there.’

  He pointed down into the water. She looked but could see nothing but bubbles and a stalk of seaweed floating by.

  ‘No, Rosemary. Don’t look at the surface of the water. You have to look beyond it. Like you’re looking through a window. Quick! Or you’ll miss it.’

  She’d looked down through the water. Then she’d caught her breath.

  A shape, as big as a car but dark as a shadow, slipped smoothly beneath the surface and under the boat. Then, still no more than a shadow beneath the glassy surface of the sea, it slowly circled them.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s big,’ her father had said. ‘It might be a dolphin. Or a shark.’

  ‘A shark?’

  ‘Could be.’ Then he’d smiled and put his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe up here in the boat.’

  She had felt safe with his arm around her as they watched the circling shadow.

  But as she gazed at the mural in front of her, and imagined another darker, more menacing shadow, swimming through a world beyond this one, she felt anything but safe.

  Chapter 29

  Running on Empty

  ‘Believe me,’ Richard said in a low voice. ‘I’ve run this car three years. If that gauge says the tank’s empty, then you can take my word for it – it’s empty.’

  Michael dropped the car’s speed to sixty and cruised along the slow lane.

  Michael said, ‘Even with the gauge registering empty a car’s usually good for a gallon or so.’

  ‘Not this one. It caught me out the first week I bought it. I had to walk home from town.’

  ‘Damn,’ Michael whispered, his eyes scanning ahead. ‘We’ll have to risk pulling in at the next services.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky.’ Joey spoke in a fear-dried voice. ‘We’ve just passed a sign. The next motorway services aren’t for another fifteen miles.’

  Richard said, ‘It’ll be a miracle to get another five miles out of it.’

  Christine leaned forward. ‘Michael. How do you know this thing is near? We might have left it behind at that lay-by.’

  ‘No such luck. It’ll follow us like a hunting dog.’

  ‘You can see it now?’

  ‘No. I can’t see it. I can sense it. It feels like a dozen electric shocks running across my skin. You see, it sucks up a lot of static as it moves.’

  Joey sounded bewildered. ‘And you’ve never seen this thing?’

  ‘No, but if you like, you can hear it.’ Michael switched on the radio. An old Beach Boys song rolled from the speakers. Michael turned the tuning control to take it off station, then he turned the volume up full. The sound of static hissed loudly then faded … louder again … then faded.

  Michael’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Hear it? I told you it carried a static charge. When it gets close you can switch on a radio or television and you can hear it. Sounds like a heart-beat, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Then why,’ asked Christine, ‘why didn’t you sense it approaching back at the lay-by?’

  ‘I did. I only misjudged how close it was.’

  ‘But if what you say is true, you’ve lived with this thing, the Beast, you called it, for the last twenty years?’

  ‘In Turkey, yes. Not here in Britain. It’s becoming unstable … unpredictable. I think it’s changing.’

  ‘Can we go home now, Mum?’

  Richard glanced back at Amy. Her eyes were big and tired-looking as if she was coming down with a cold. Christ, what was this doing to her?

  ‘Soon, sweetheart,’ she said.

  The girl closed her eyes and nestled under her mother’s protective arm.

  Richard clenched his fists and stared forwards.

  ‘What happens,’ asked Joey, ‘if the car runs out of petrol?’

  ‘That’s obvious,’ Richard snapped. ‘The car stops. Then …’ For Amy’s sake he didn’t complete the sentence.

  ‘We’d have to flag down a car,’ Joey continued. ‘We’d have to make one stop.’

  ‘On a motorway?’ Richard shook his head. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Michael had pulled the car off the motorway at the next exit. ‘We’ll probably find a service station faster off the motorway.’ He drove carefully now, never taking it above forty as if trying to conserve what precious little remained of the fuel.

  Joey gnawed his thumb. ‘If we run out of petrol we could get out and run?’

  Michael slowly shook his head. ‘You can’t outrun it on foot.’

  ‘We split up; run in different directions.’

  Michael shook his head again.

  ‘Shit.’ Joey sagged back into the seat, his face grey.

  Richard’s eyes strained into the distance, willing himself to see a service station. There were only fields.

  ‘When we reach a service station we’ll have to move fast,’ Michael told them. ‘I can’t guarantee we’ll have more than about sixty seconds before this thing starts stamping down on our heads.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘I’ll stay in the driving seat. You, Richard, pump a couple of gallons into the tank, that’ll be enough. Joey pays the cashier.’

  ‘Pay?’ Joey sounded incredulous. ‘We won’t have time to pay. Get in there; slap in the petrol, then we’re off. Like a bat out of bleeding hell.’

  Michael shook his head. ‘We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves. The police are probably already looking for a red Volvo. With luck that girl at the diner was in too much of a hurry saving her skin; she won’t remember much more than a few details – colour, maybe make of car, four adults, one child, that kind of thing. But if we hare off without paying you can bet the cashier’ll take our plate number as well as the colour and make of car. That’s when the police put two and two together.’

  ‘Ma
ybe it’s best we try our luck with the police after all.’

  ‘And sit in a police station interview room waiting for the ceiling to come slamming down?’ Michael shook his head. ‘Think it through, Richard.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do. Maybe there’s a way we can keep moving but still talk to the police.’

  ‘What, from call boxes, or maybe drive by the side of a police car talking through the window as we go?’ He gave a humourless laugh.

  Christine spoke quickly. ‘Or a mobile phone. If we could only get hold of—’

  The car gave a cough and everyone sensed the engine miss a beat. Richard held his breath as the engine faded.

  Then it picked up again. He breathed deeply with relief. ‘Don’t worry. Just some dirt been sucked in through the fuel pipe.’

  Joey rubbed his face. ‘Just dirt? That means it’s sucking on what’s left from the bottom of the tank. It could run out any minute.’

  ‘Take it easy.’ Michael spoke softly. ‘There’s a service station right there at the bottom of the hill.’

  Joey let out an explosive sigh. ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  ‘Remember what I told you.’ Michael licked dry lips. ‘Richard, have you enough cash for a couple of gallons?’

  ‘A fiver.’

  ‘That’s enough. Put in five pounds’ worth, then Joey won’t have to waste time waiting for change. Joey. Don’t run, or scream or anything like that. Look relaxed.’

  ‘Relaxed? Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘Try.’ Michael slowed the car to thirty. ‘When I say GO, get out quickly and do what you have to do. OK?’

  They nodded.

  It was a self-service garage. Fortunately all the pumps were vacant. Richard could see the female cashier sitting behind the counter. With luck they could be in and out of there within forty seconds or so.

  Come to think of it, they would have to be long gone within forty seconds. A thought struck him as Michael shifted down the gears as he pulled in. ‘Wait a minute, won’t that thing trash this place?’