Darker

by Simon Clark

  ‘Not if we’re quick. As soon as we put some distance between us and it, it’ll merely switch to following us.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘Later, Christine. Here we are. Pump three … Go.’

  Richard and Joey climbed quickly out of the car.

  Richard handed Joey the cash, then took the nozzle from its holder. Joey tried hard to walk casually toward the cashier’s window.

  Richard’s eyes were drawn back the way they came. Hammerhead storm clouds bubbled up from the horizon. Somewhere close, that thing the man described as the Beast was coming their way. Dark, pounding, with the destructive force of a nightmare god that was old before Moses.

  The display on the pump flicked to a row of zeros.

  Here comes my Destroyer. Despite the heat he shivered. Here it comes …

  … that dark and pounding and irresistible force …

  BANG!

  ‘Richard! Joey!’

  Richard had almost reached the car, the nozzle in his hand. His head snapped up. Michael was out of the car; his fist had hit the car’s roof to attract their attention.

  ‘Get back into the car,’ Michael shouted. ‘We’re too late. It’s here!’

  Richard rammed the nozzle back into the pump. A hundred yards away in a cornfield a swathe ten feet wide appeared. Something invisible crushed it flat. It ran across the cornfield towards the filling station, scything corn, destroying fences.

  Joey swung himself into the back seat and slammed the door. Richard hit the passenger seat as Michael revved the engine. The car swung out of the station and on to the road. A horn sounded from an irate trucker.

  ‘Just in time,’ panted Michael. ‘It came in fast that time.’

  Richard took a deep breath and looked back. The swathe running across the cornfield had ended in a flurry of movement as through a cyclone had hit it. Then the force seemed to evaporate into nothing leaving the corn swinging this way and that as if the surrounding air had been displaced by its disappearance.

  Michael wiped his forehead. ‘We were lucky that time.’

  ‘Lucky?’ Richard echoed. ‘We’re going to run out of petrol any second now. You call that lucky?’

  Michael’s eyes anxiously scanned ahead. ‘All we can do is pray it holds out.’

  ‘If it does? And we fill the tank, what then?’

  ‘We drive fast and put some space between us and it. Then we can lose it for a few hours.’

  There was hardly any traffic on the road. Michael took the car up to seventy, eyes flicking anxiously from gauge to road. An insect hit the windscreen with a crack; a blood spot trickled up the glass before the push of air.

  Two trucks lumbered up the hill toward them, a police car following. Richard watched it pass. Its driver didn’t notice them. Again he felt something that blended relief with disappointment. He still held out a fragment of hope that if they went to the police they might be safe. Christine had mentioned getting hold of a mobile telephone. Maybe there was something in that. Maybe if —

  The engine died.

  As simply as that. It faded. Then died. Still coasting under the momentum, Michael slipped the car into neutral, and tried starting the engine. Above the rush of air the starter motor cranked away uselessly.

  ‘It’s no good.’ Richard clenched his fists. ‘The tank’s empty.’

  ‘Jesus, oh, Jesus.’ Joey bleated. ‘What now? What the hell do we do now?’

  Rosemary made it as far as Pontefract’s town centre. It was a market day and the precincts bustled with people buying fruit and vegetables. She knew her strength was at an all-time low. Leg and face hurting, she forced herself to eat a bar of chocolate. After that she swallowed salted peanuts one by one as if they were pills. They felt like pieces of concrete grazing down the inside of her throat. But she knew she needed the protein and the salt.

  The town was strange to her. She wandered round the streets looking for the car park she’d seen on the news.

  After a great deal of trial and error she found it. Instantly she saw where it had happened. Most of the car park was full of cars but a good chunk of it had been taped off. The wrecked car had gone, but there was still an oily slick on the Tarmac where it had been. Elsewhere she saw the traces of where that thing had destroyed signs and concrete bollards.

  Without a shred of doubt she knew it had been here. The smiling stranger with down-turned eyes had been here, too. When she pictured his face her skin prickled and she felt the handle of the knife through the fabric of the rucksack.

  Maybe she would be too late to save that family and the little girl called Amy. They might be already dead. But she would find him. And then she’d slice great crimson rents in his face. She would have her revenge. She would bathe her wounded Frankenstein face with his blood.

  Richard looked back at Amy and Christine as the car free wheeled down the slight incline. Christine’s face was tight and expressionless. But he knew what she was thinking: HOW DO WE SAVE OUR LITTLE GIRL?

  Christ. How do we save her?

  The car sounded absurdly silent as it coasted along, engine dead, the tyres making a soft rippling sound against the road-tar.

  ‘You.’ Joey sweated. ‘You. Michael. You’ve got us into this. You get us out.’

  ‘Believe me, that’s what I’m trying to do.’

  ‘But for crying out loud, what can you do?’

  ‘Keep the car rolling, for one.’

  Richard glanced at the speedo. Steadily it was dropping. Sixty-five … Sixty … The rippling sound slowed.

  He found himself trying to push the car on by will-power alone.

  ‘Big problem is …’ Michael licked his lips. ‘The road’s running uphill. Only a slight incline …’

  ‘We’ll not make it,’ Joey said heavily.

  Fifty-five. Richard’s jaw clenched.

  Michael whispered, half to himself, ‘Wait and see, wait and see.’

  Fifty.

  In the back Christine’s eyes looked huge. Richard found himself thinking about all the things he wished he’d told her.

  Forty.

  Christ. It’s as if something more than gravity was slowing the car; big scaly hands wrapped around the back bumper hauling the bastard car to a stop. Richard twisted to look back, expecting to see something there, cruelly slowing them. So that bastard wretch of a thing that this smug bastard Michael what’s-his-fuck-name had inflicted on them could catch them.

  Here comes my Destroyer …

  Here it comes to kill me, my wife, my four-year-old girl, who gets so excited at birthdays and Christmas she can’t sit still and bounces round the room like … like …

  Richard bit his lip, his eyes watered

  This couldn’t be it … this couldn’t be the end of everything he’d poured his heart and soul and life into …

  It was coming.

  Thirty-five miles per hour …

  … his Destroyer …

  That dark and pounding and terrible force …

  Those two policemen … Please God, tell me they died quick. But they had died bloodily beneath that tarpaulin, crushed like woodlice under your heel …

  ‘Come on, come on …’ Michael rocked backwards and forwards in the car as it slowed.

  Twenty-five.

  ‘Come on.’

  Twenty.

  Michael yelled: ‘Nearly there, nearly there. It’s the brow of the hill. If we get past that we’ve got a run down the other side … It’ll be fast enough … we’ll find a filling station … We’ll be safe …’

  Fifteen.

  ‘Come on!’

  Ten miles an hour. Richard’s eyes were nailed to the speedo.

  The rippling of the tyres had turned into a sticky sound. As the wheels turned slower, slower … slower …

  Five miles per hour. The brow of the hill thirty yards away.

  Richard thought bitterly, IT MIGHT AS WELL BE FUCKING THIRTY MILES AWAY.

  He thought of Mark safe on his camping trip. Take care, s
on. You’ll have to grow up without us now. Maybe, some time years from now, Mark would fire that old rocket at the sky. And recall the time long, long ago when his parents were there, and little Amy, whose lives were cut so brutally short in that bizarre car wreck. Were his mother’s eyes blue or brown? Brown, he was sure they were brown. Then maybe he’d watch the video of Amy’s birthday. When she ended up with cream from the trifle on her nose and Joey’s dog had licked it off, sending her into a giggling fit that —

  ‘Richard,’ Michael yelled. ‘Get out and push!’

  Dazed, Richard almost fell from the car. It still free wheeled at walking pace but it was slowing all the time. Joey also tumbled out, slammed himself at the back of the car and pushed, his cheeks blowing out frantically.

  ‘Push! Push!’ Joey screamed, his face as red as blood. ‘Push, you fucking stupid twat!’

  Richard ran to the back of the car and pushed alongside Joey. Christine on the other side appeared. She pushed until the muscles in her neck stood out like taut wires beneath her skin.

  Michael pushed the car with one hand still on the steering wheel. Incongruously, Amy kneeled up in the seat and stared back at them, her eyes saucer-big, thumb in mouth.

  The Volvo was a heavy lump of steel. Richard would swear they were pushing with the handbrake on.

  Move! Move! MOVE!

  ‘Come on, you …’ gasped Joey, sweat streaming. ‘Push!’

  They pushed together until they felt their muscles would strip from their thigh bones. Pains flashed like lightning up Richard’s spine.

  ‘It’s moving!’ Michael yelled. ‘Keep going!’

  The car’s pace quickened up the slight incline; soon Richard found he was having to run to keep up with it; that great chunk of steel and rubber and plastic powered by pure adrenalin.

  Richard felt a snap of static electricity across his palms where they pressed against metal.

  It was coming closer.

  Their Destroyer …

  Pounding darkly toward them.

  Something screeched and bellowed behind them.

  A truck. It was a bloody truck. It weaved by, the trucker shouting something about mad bastards pushing cars …

  ‘Christ,’ Joey squealed in amazement. ‘No … Michael can’t do that!’

  Michael had jumped back into the car. For crying out loud, what’s he doing? thought Richard in disbelief. He should be pushing the car, not riding like Lord Shithead in the front seat.

  Then Richard heard the starter motor whining as Michael turned the key.

  ‘My God … what’s he playing at?’

  A clunk. The car juddered. And suddenly pushing became easier. Now they had to run hard to keep up with it.

  Then Richard realized what Michael had done. He’d put the car in gear, turned the ignition and used the car’s powerful starter motor to pull it the last few yards.

  They reached the brow of the hill. It ran steeply away in front of them. A good two miles of straight, empty downhill road-tar.

  Jesus, that looked sweet …

  Michael shouted. ‘I’m not stopping. You’ll have to jump for it.’

  Joey ran, his head pumping up and down, lank hair flicking from side to side. He reached the passenger door behind Michael, opened it, dragged himself in.

  Richard reached the front passenger door, opened it.

  ‘Richard!’ Christine screamed. She was losing her balance, tumbling forward.

  Forty paces behind the car roadside bushes, signs, fences shattered.

  The Beast had found them.

  Jumping onto the framework of the car, door open under his arm, Richard caught his wife’s arm and hauled her through the doorway, both somehow falling onto the front passenger seat in a tangle of arms and legs.

  At the third attempt Richard shut the door, his wife crammed between him and Michael.

  Michael didn’t seem to notice. ‘Come on! Come on, baby! That’s it!’

  The speedo needle pointed to thirty … thirty-five … forty …

  With an agonizing slowness the speed increased down the hill.

  Then the speedo kissed sixty.

  ‘Done it!’ Michael flashed an exhilarated grin. ‘It won’t catch us now.’

  ‘Until we reach the next uphill section of road.’

  Michael looked along the road. ‘About a mile away. There’s another filling station.’

  He glanced at Richard then at Joey. ‘Right, Gentlemen. Get your breath back. We’re going to try again.’

  Chapter 30

  Faith

  She walked through town with no particular place to go. Heavy clouds reared ugly thunderheads over the town centre church; the heat felt sticky, oppressive, and Rosemary Snow ached from head to toe.

  She weaved her way through the market stalls; shoppers crowded the precincts.

  Outside the town’s redbrick museum, she stopped. Standing outside the entrance was a totem pole. She stared at it as if she’d seen it before and for a reason she couldn’t explain she disliked the look of it. She shook her head, puzzled. There was nothing unusual about the thing. It stood about ten feet tall. And like any other totem pole it was simply a stack of carved heads one on top of the other.

  She shivered. It fascinated her. Yet it repelled her. Really she wanted to turn her back on it and walk away. But she felt compelled to let her eyes take in every detail. There were seven gargoyle heads carved from a dark worm-eaten wood. Some of the heads had a nose that curved outwards and downwards like a hook, others had eagle beaks. All had hooked ears.

  She shivered.

  What fascinated her, and disturbed her most, were the eyes – the staring, staring eyes.

  ‘Sweet as a bloody nut.’ Joey sounded pleased with himself as Richard drove away from the filling station.

  Michael smiled. ‘You didn’t think we were going to make it, did you? And we had time to buy sandwiches and milk. Would you like a carton, Amy?’

  ‘I’ll decide when she has a drink,’ Christine said shortly.

  Richard glanced back at her in the rearview; her eyes glittered angrily. He realized she wasn’t being pointlessly possessive of Amy by refusing the drink. She felt that Michael was beginning to take over. Already he decided when they drove, how fast they drove, where they drove, making suggestions in that gentle unassuming voice that now sounded more like orders. ‘Best take a right here, Richard … Might be better to speed it up a little. Sixty should be about right … If you follow the signs to the motorway, that might be for the best …’

  Now Christine had rebelled at him slipping into the role of food and drink provider.

  ‘Cold milk gives her stomach ache.’

  The man smiled and nodded, still maintaining the friendly, almost apologetic, image.

  Joey was grinning, pleased with himself. Richard, too, felt on a high. They’d beaten the Beast, slapped into the tank enough petrol for the next sixty miles, and the road ahead was clear. As Richard drove, Michael managed to swap his bloodstained shirt for a brand new one from the rucksack. White, pristine, short sleeves, he could have been a dentist or a doctor enjoying a day’s ride out into the countryside.

  Christine stroked Amy’s hair as she spoke. ‘I don’t see what everyone’s so pleased about. That thing’s still following, isn’t it?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘And the police might be looking for us now?’

  ‘True.’

  Richard’s buzz fizzled. He remembered the two cops crushed beneath the canopy. Guiltily he realized he’d no right to feel good about anything. A shadow pulled darkly over his spirits.

  ‘You are right, Christine. All I can say again is that I apologize for getting you mixed up in this. I was desperate. If it’s any consolation, you saved my life this morning,’ Michael went on.

  Richard said, ‘It goes without saying that this morning you weren’t being followed by a gang of thugs?’

  ‘Spot on. I knew you wouldn’t have believed me, so I told you the first thing t
hat came into my head that would get us away from the house.’

  ‘But nothing did happen to our house. Did it?’

  ‘No, it’s untouched. We managed to get away before the thing managed to condense itself into a state where it could cause physical damage.’

  ‘So whilst we keep moving we’re safe?’

  He nodded seriously. ‘Completely safe.’

  ‘But we can’t drive for ever.’

  ‘Agreed. But if we can put some space between us and it, then it will take it quite a while for it to … to home in on us, if you like.’

  ‘Just how long is quite a while?’

  ‘Ten hours. Twelve if we’re very lucky.’

  Richard shot him a look. ‘That’s if the police don’t stop us.’

  Michael nodded. ‘That might be the main problem. We mustn’t allow the police to interfere. Not under any circumstances.’

  ‘Great,’ Joey said, the smile leaving his face. ‘How do we do that? Fire a bazooka out of the back window at them?’

  Michael gave a tired smile. ‘We’ll think of something.’

  He’d no sooner spoken the words when the police car appeared behind them. Richard looked back into the rearview mirror, then down at the speedo. They were doing perhaps fifty-five on a road with a fifty speed limit.

  Richard looked back at the police car again just as the blue lights started flashing and the siren began to howl.

  Rosemary Snow stood watching the televisions in the shop window. If she saw more news of the destruction in Pontefract that morning it might offer another clue. Instead, two dozen TV screens showed a woman with white permed hair making fruit pies.

  Rosemary needed to sit down. Her legs shook so much she was in danger of falling flat on her face. From the date on today’s newspaper, she knew she’d lain unconscious in that hospital bed for twelve days. Twelve nights ago she had run from that thing as it shattered the farmhouse and, very nearly, her too. And twelve nights ago that leap into the coal truck had left her with the Frankenstein face.

  She sat on the market hall steps and rested her arms on her upraised knees, then closed her eyes. Sometimes she saw through the eyes of the little girl. Perhaps that was the way to find the family? Perhaps the girl would see something that Rosemary would recognize, or a place name on a sign.