by Davies, Neil
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” he said finally. “But I’ve no intention of running away. That just doesn’t feel right.”
He paused and saw each of the others nod or voice their agreement before continuing.
“It doesn’t leave us too many options. We could barricade ourselves in here and wait. Sooner or later they’ll reach us and we could probably hold them off for the whole night if necessary. However, we would be trapped in here. I don’t know the numbers we’re up against but, presuming that everyone gathering at my old house is out there, it’s a lot. They’d easily surround this chapel and cut off any chance of escape.”
“What about the police?” said Mr. Crosby. “Surely, eventually, someone will come to investigate what’s going on?”
No one spoke and, after a moment’s reflection, Mr. Crosby smiled grimly.
“Just ignore me,” he said. “I know as well as anyone that Katrina has the local police in her pocket. I just forgot for a moment.”
“Any not already on her side will be dead by now anyway,” said Ethel, once again surprising Tim with her matter-of-fact acceptance of the brutality they faced.
“I think we have to accept that there’s no outside help coming,” said Tim. “Anything that’s going to be done is going to be done by us.”
“So, if you’re against trapping ourselves in here, what do you suggest?” said the Professor, waving the stem of his pipe in the air as he spoke, emphasising his words.
“That we go out there and push right through them,” said Tim.
“You can count I suppose?” said Susan. “There are likely to be a lot more of them than us.”
“True, but I’m not suggesting we stand still and fight them,” said Tim. “You’ve all convinced me that Katrina is behind this, so we go for her.”
“How do we know where she’ll be?” said Mr. Crosby.
“I think she’ll still be at the old house. That house is important to her for some reason. I don’t believe she’ll move from there unless she has to.”
“What you’re suggesting,” said Ethel, “is that we drive a wedge through their middle and head straight for your family’s old house, using the element of surprise to help us?”
“Precisely. I doubt they’ll expect a small group like us to come out fighting.”
“And if and when we get to the house?” said the Professor, the suggestion of a smile playing about his lips.
“We eliminate the command structure.”
“That I like the sound of,” said Susan.
3
Katrina could feel Aello’s power flooding her body and her brain. She pushed down a fear that it would prove too much, that it would split her open and spill out. She had to trust Aello. She did trust Aello. Katrina had offered her body, to share it so the ancient harpy could feel flesh once more. Everything was working perfectly.
In her mind she saw her followers, possessed by the spirits of the house and the entities called forth on Aello’s command, wreaking havoc in the village. Just like her dream, the streets would run with blood until there were none left to stand against her.
There was a passing flinch of emotion, a griping twist in her stomach, as she thought of Tim lying dead among the others. If only he had seen reason and come over to her side. She forced the thought from her mind. He had lost his chance. He was the enemy and he would die because of it.
She closed her eyes, seeing the death and destruction being carried out in her name, in Aello’s name. It was more than imagination; it was a vision, a small example of the power she had.
She grimaced slightly, moaning involuntarily as the flowing power welled to almost unbearable volume before pulling back. She dragged off her robe, letting it pool at her feet. It constrained her, imprisoned her, despite its thinness. The waves of energy were building, and at times their cresting pushed her mortal form to its limits.
But she trusted Aello.
4
Mark stood in the shadows at the back of the hallway, watching Katrina.
The possession of the followers had shaken him. He knew there would be killing and had accepted that from the start, but the way all those people had suddenly lost any sign of humanity had left him cold and afraid.
And now, as he watched, Katrina’s skin writhed and bubbled as though thousands of worms burrowed through her body. Blisters formed and popped, splattering green and yellow pus over the hallway carpet. Small cracks opened in the skin, blood meandering round the constantly shifting bumps and crevices. He remembered how smooth her skin was, how he used to run his fingers gently over it, feeling the small hairs bristle at the movement. Now he was too afraid to go near it.
Through it all, Katrina seemed oblivious. Perhaps a small moan, a slight twitch as several blisters burst or her skin stretched to almost translucent before snapping back.
He did not know what was happening. He doubted Katrina did either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1
They saw the first body in the road opposite the car park where Tim had first met the Professor and his daughter. Tim thought it was a boy, probably in his late teens. It was difficult to tell as the body had been so beaten, hacked and mutilated as to make it little more than meat, bone and offal. It looked more like something thrown in the bin out the back of the butcher’s than a human being.
None of them said anything, but each filed past with solemnity and growing anger. If there was fear mixed in there, Tim could not have said who felt it and who did not. Each of his companions were focussed and grim, and each were armed as best as they could manage.
Ethel held her Mauser HSc. She only had six bullets left but she carried it with a comfortable ease that left no doubt as to her ability to make each shot count.
Mr. Crosby held a mallet they had found in a toolbox near the back door of the converted chapel. In his pocket he had several screwdrivers of varying sizes.
Susan held a serrated bread knife. She had wanted to somehow return to her guesthouse room and get her trusted Heckler & Koch P7, but it was an unrealistic and unnecessarily dangerous proposition. After some argument, she had reluctantly agreed that they were right. But, she said, if they should happen to find themselves near the guesthouse, she was getting it.
The Professor held a short wood-axe, found in the same toolbox as Mr. Crosby’s mallet. He also had two screwdrivers in his jacket pocket and his still unlit pipe jutting from his mouth, like Popeye going after Bluto.
The thought made Tim smile and that felt good. It meant he was relaxed. Alert but relaxed, as he should be. His Glock semi-automatic was holstered at his hip.
As they entered the main street through the village, memories of Eastern Europe came back to Tim. Genocide, the destruction of villages, the brutal murder of everyone.
Ethnic cleansing.
That was what had hit Byre that night. Ethnic cleansing. The followers of Katrina killing anyone who was not one of them.
The bodies lay over the street, the pavement, half in shop doorways. Every window in every shop was shattered. Goods had been strewn about among the bodies. All just so much refuse.
“There wouldn’t have been this many people in the village this time of night,” said Mr. Crosby quietly.
“They dragged them here from their houses,” said the Professor. “This is not just murder, it’s a statement. They’re demonstrating their complete control of the village.”
Tim nodded his agreement as he scanned the buildings for signs of movement. So far they had seen none of the robed followers. They had seen no living thing at all.
Ahead he could see the source of the glow above the village. The church was ablaze, flames licking the top of the steeple.
“They’re certainly making a statement,” he said. “But I’d be happier if they were here to make it in person.”
“You’d prefer them to be here?” said Susan. “Really?”
Tim nodded. “I’d rather know where they are than be surprised later on.”
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Moving further into the village, stepping over bodies, they checked each one at Tim’s insistence, to make sure no one was simply playing dead. It took no more than a glance. The injuries were severe enough to tell straight away that each one was dead.
As they reached the centre, surrounded by broken shops to left and right and nowhere to move but the road in front and behind, Tim drew the Glock from its holster and lifted it. As he walked he scanned the surroundings, the barrel of the gun moving with his eyes.
The simple act of drawing the gun made the others stiffen. While it was holstered they knew that Tim did not feel they were in immediate danger. But now...
Tim looked left, right, high, low. If he were planning an ambush, this is where he would do it. Their escape routes were severely limited, as was their movement. One thing on their side, however, was that so far he had seen no gunshot wounds in the victims. They were all stabbed, hacked or beaten. Similarly he had heard no gunshots earlier when the sounds of the mob had first reached them.
He was thankful to be facing this in an English village. While guns were certainly available if people took the trouble to look, they were not easily bought in the local shopping mall. For once he thanked the restrictive nature of the British government.
2
Katrina or Aello, it became increasingly difficult for her to know whose personality, whose power was uppermost at any given time, saw in her mind the advancing group. At their head was Tim, but any emotion the human part felt was smothered beneath the hatred of the harpy. This was the man whose ancestors had brought her to this country, devoid of the gods she knew, ruled at the time by a belief in one single god, a belief that itself had largely fallen aside now. Her prison had become a godless country and, before she had found the susceptibility and belief of the first Village Witch of Byre, she too had been in danger of fading into nothingness.
My predecessors saved you from extinction, thought Katrina.
Yes. The reply came from deep within, a harsh, rasping voice inside her head. Aello saw no reason to be anything other than honest and open with the human shell she now inhabited. Without that belief I would have gone the way of my sisters Ocypete, Celaeno and Podarge. I cannot now even feel the presence of the great Zeus or Athena or any of the gods. If the Keres had not answered my call, I would think I were alone in the supernatural realm that is my true home.
Katrina, the human part that still survived even as it was surrounded by the continually growing power of the harpy, felt an overwhelming emptiness, a crippling loneliness fill her whole being. It was only for one small moment, but if that had been Aello’s lot for almost four hundred years, Katrina was happy and proud to be the vessel of her release.
You are no longer alone, either in the supernatural or the natural realm, thought Katrina. You have a new following, a growing army of believers.
Then it is time they crushed my enemies, rasped Aello. The last of the cursed Galtons must be brought to me. His death is something I would savour personally.
The small twinge of anguish that the human Katrina felt, she put down to the ever increasing pressure of Aello’s energy. She would not even consider that it could be anything else.
3
The first robed figure came scuttling across the flat roof of the newsagents, an axe held in his fist, blood congealing on the blade. Tim did not hesitate to put two bullets into him, the second punching a hole in his forehead and splitting the back of his skull.
The sudden explosion of sound made the others jump, all except Ethel who reacted by calmly lifting her revolver into a firing position, her arm shaking from age rather than any fear. Tim did not look her way. He already knew he could trust her. The others he glanced at, but each had recovered from their momentary shock and were holding their respective weapons ready for use.
Tim was relieved. He knew they would need them at any moment.
The figure on the roof had moved early, but now the rest came from their hiding places, axes, bars, knives, bricks, raised ready to strike. They screamed as they poured from the broken shops, the narrow alleys to the rear of the buildings, the rooftops, and the screams were almost inhuman.
If the screaming unnerved Ethel she did not show it, putting measured shots into the advancing mob, each bullet finding its mark. Tim too had opened fire, his bullets also finding their intended targets. But the two weapons were not enough to prevent the robed attackers closing on them, and in moments the group was grappling hand-to-hand with the crazed, possessed creatures.
The fight was hectic and fast and it soon became apparent that Tim was their main target.
He defended himself calmly and with skill, using the Glock as a club and his fists, elbows, knees, feet and head as weapons. Although the bodies falling at his feet restricted his movement, they also made new attacks more difficult. He felt it was a fair trade.
The Professor, a keen boxer in his college days, stood his ground and punched with some speed and power with one hand while the wood-axe thudded more than once into vulnerable skin and bone. But there were too many of them, and he bled badly from a head wound and his knuckles were raw and split.
Susan too was giving a good account, using the bread knife to slash, stab and hack, but she was bruised and bleeding from many cuts, both new and old, and her energy was fast running out.
Mr. Crosby stayed near to Ethel, swinging the mallet, but only occasionally finding a target. He saw someone grab Ethel by the arm and began to move towards her to help, but she twisted free, pushed stiffened fingers into the man’s eyes and, as he backed away screaming, kicked him hard in the groin. He fell as Mr. Crosby winced in understanding, if not sympathy.
Had there been fewer attackers, the small group would have been the victors, but sheer superiority of numbers was beginning to tell. Tim knew it would not be long before he himself, never mind the others, fell. He suspected, in fact, that he would already be down if it were not so obvious that they were trying to take him alive. That restraint they were being forced to show gave him an advantage. He had no issue with killing any that came too close.
The others were not so fortunate. Mr. Crosby had fallen under a heavy blow from a baseball bat. Susan was being all but overwhelmed by a concerted attack. Ethel still stood, but her age-weakened muscles were drained and Tim doubted she could survive much longer. Only the Professor still looked surprisingly fresh, despite the blood from his head wound. He continued to fight and, other than taking a few blows with little flinching, was coming out on top. Tim was impressed. This was a side to the Professor he would never have guessed.
He fought his way closer to the Professor, shouting above the still screaming, although fewer in number, mob.
“Everyone needs to scatter. We won’t win with so many all in one place,” he said. “When I give the signal, make sure everyone runs. They’ll have to split up if they want to follow us and that might just give each of us a chance.”
The Professor nodded as he swung the axe in a short, close arc, slicing across the scalp of a woman whose hood had fallen back. Tim heard the crack of the skull breaking and saw a bloody flap of skin lift from her head. It would seem the Professor was a handy man to have around in a fight.
“What’s the signal?” said the Professor, unconcerned at the damage he had just caused as he kept others back with more swings of the axe.
“Coming right up.”
Tim quickly dropped the empty clip from the blood-slick Glock and, pulling another from his pocket, slammed it home.
He opened fire.
His first bullets cleared a space around himself. The next few expertly aimed headshots hit those surrounding Susan. Spattered with the others’ blood, she looked at him, stunned and hurt.
“Run!” he shouted and, as her father reached her and grabbed her arm, she responded. She pushed to her feet, the two of them running back the way they had come.
Tim’s next shots cleared space around Mr. Crosby and Ethel and, at a further shout from him, they
too hurried away. Ethel led and he felt sure she would understand the need for them to separate.
In the final act of his plan, Tim emptied the semi-automatic into the mob at random, causing panic and confusion. Then, as the gun clicked empty, he re-holstered the weapon and raised his arms in surrender.
After a moment’s hesitation they piled onto him. There were too many to count. They punched and kicked him to the ground. He took the heavy blows without resistance, knowing that the more of them that surrounded him and took him prisoner, the less there were to follow the others.
His last conscious thought was a hope that the Professor, Susan, Mr. Crosby and Ethel would be okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1
They split into two groups, the Professor and Susan cutting across the fields in the rough direction of the distant harbour, Mr. Crosby and Ethel staying on the road and heading back towards Tim’s converted chapel.
The Professor had chosen the fields, feeling that the more elderly couple had a better chance staying on the hard surface of the road, but as he glanced back he felt guilty. Most of the robed killers had also chosen to stay on the road and would no doubt soon close on the slow moving couple. So far, only three had chosen to take to the fields in pursuit of him and his daughter.
Susan, seeing her father glance backwards, understood his thoughts without hesitating to wonder how, said, “We have to go back to help.” She slowed to a stop.
The Professor nodded, breathing heavily from the short run, and the two turned to face those following.
2
Janie, her teenage being suppressed but not supplanted by the creature that had so roughly forced its way into her body at the Galton house, smiled as she saw the old man and the woman stop and turn. These were the two they had failed to stop before they reached the village. These were the two who had ruined everything. Brian would still be alive if not for these two. She knew the thing that controlled her body would not hesitate to take revenge for her.
