Alec took advantage of Jason’s confusion and took a sudden step into the cupboard. “I told you to get out.” He snarled.
Jason had no choice. He swung the crowbar wild.
Chapter Forty Three
The noise of Kelly’s jog up the stairs was masked by the shrill alarm bells that echoed and chased up and down the shaft of the stairwell. She stepped onto another darkened landing and peeked cautiously through the glass panel of the fire-door, saw the corridor was clear and quickly checked the bolt; it was unlocked as the previous six floors had been. It seemed clear to her that this was how the thing stalked the building unseen. She quickly slid the bolt home as she had with the others and would with any more she might find unlocked, hopefully ensuring that if the undertaker was stalking the corridors it couldn’t get back to cut off the others retreat. Her heart skipped a beat and she nearly lost her grip on her axe as something snagged at her jeans.
Her heart fell into a tremble as her phone vibrated again in her hip pocket. She pressed the phone to her ear and took the call, not taking her eyes off of the landing ahead in case the undertaker or whatever-else might suddenly step into view.
“You okay?” Craig asked, barely audible above the bells.
“Yeah. I’m half-way up. Nothing to tell you yet, though. I take it it’s not with you?”
“No,” there was a pause before his tone turned grim. “Not yet. We have set the fires. There is lots of smoke, but nothing has come out to investigate or challenge us yet.”
“Yeah the smoke is coming up the middle of the stairwell. It’s not affecting me, just makes it a bit difficult to see if anything is on the landings or stair cases ahead until I get on top of them. We won’t have long before the services get here. Maybe it knows that. If there’s nothing up here it looks like it will be down to you guys. When I’m done I will move straight to the bottom and guard the escape route as we planned. I’m going now, I don’t like standing still too long.” Kelly wasn’t sure how to end the call after Craig had asked her out so she wished him luck and ended the call.
Kelly looked past the shifting column of black smoke that flowed upwards to the landing at the top of the stairs ahead of her. A dark silhouette was standing against the frosted glass window making it hazy and indiscernible at first, but then she recognised the shape. She looked down to the rose in her hands and she knew the night, the time and the place. She immediately felt the comfort and familiarity of being home, the feel of the carpet under her bare feet, the paint colour she had chosen for the hallway walls. This wasn’t her flat, it was her house.
“I am so sorry I missed the meal you made for me,” Ian apologised sensitively from within the black silhouette.
Kelly remembered the words and could feel the frustration of the moment rise within her. She knew the anniversary meal would be sitting on the table in the dining room behind her. It was spoilt. She had kept it heated for as long as she could but it had dried up.
“Things have just been so busy, what with work.” She saw his shape move as he put a hand over his face in shame. “There’s no excuse; I’m sorry I forgot our anniversary.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she found herself repeating words she had spoken before. The words lacked conviction and seemed ill-fitting and squirmed within the mould of her past statement. She marvelled at how weak she had been. Of course it mattered!
“I haven’t been a very good husband have I?”
Something was wrong with Ian’s words: Ian had admitted his failings that night, but now there was a depth of emotion to his voice which hadn’t been present before. “You don’t think I have been a very good husband do you?” There was no drunken slur, no spite. Memory suddenly seemed useless, not preparing her for the turn in her memories and his heartfelt tone.
“Are you staying?” she said, following the script in her head despite the anomaly. Her emotions formed into a hard smooth snooker ball in the back of her throat.
“Yes – if you want me to.”
Her heart tightened and she almost forgot to breath. Her thoughts scrambled over these new words. He was meant to turn her down, say his friends were waiting for him. What was happening? She had never played with ‘what ifs’ around that night, too much had happened for her to consider staying with him. That night had been the latest unhappy times in a chain of unhappiness that ran through the last two years of their time together. His words and actions had been her closure that night, but now there was no descent into inevitable finality. The lingering flicker of hope, which she had desperately nurtured until that night returned with its warm glow. She found herself yearning for something she thought was lost.
He rubbed his face in defeat. “I don’t even know where things started to go wrong. I always wanted someone – someone to be with, to love, to love me back.”
“You changed.”
“I know. I can’t believe I have let this all go wrong – That I could forget what made us work. I’m so sorry…” his voice strained to word his realisation.
Kelly watched him fall apart in front of her under the weight of his own self-awareness.
“I always knew relationships had the years where things are stagnant; I guess I thought they righted themselves. I got lazy. I guess I was so happy with what I had; I didn’t realise I had to keep working at a relationship. I forgot about the things that made us happy; the things that we planned for. I let it all slide and I don’t know why because I love you so much. I love us so much.”
Kelly couldn’t see his eyes but she knew that he fixed them on her, trying to read her face for some response he could cling to as a sign that he could save their relationship and himself. It didn’t make sense to her but the nervous anxiety at the thought of being able to save what they once had was building around her.
“I’m so fucking stupid. All I had to do was take an interest in our life together, do things I know I enjoy. Hold you now and again, show you how much I want to keep you by taking hold of you; to keep you wanting me.”
I always wanted you! I never stopped! The thoughts nearly escaped to her lips but she held them back. Things weren’t so clear now.
He started to walk slowly down the stairs towards her. “Is it too late?”
Was it too late? Her mind had been led down a path she hadn’t thought possible and now the way back seemed lost to her; she had a purpose that now evaded her. She looked to the rose in her hands, its presence nagged at her. The labyrinth of confusion sprawled suddenly endless around her and she knew that if she wanted what Ian offered she had to accept it now – if she hesitated, it could all be lost again.
She stood frozen in motion as her mind drifted with the direction of the moment. It had been so hard since she had left Ian, selling the house, trying to find a future for herself. She could get her dreams back.
She had loved Ian so much.
Ian closed in on her, his outstretched hand ready to slide over her shoulder. She knew his touch and she yearned for the feel of his hands on her flesh. It had been so long since she had been lost in the comforting familiar passion Ian’s body offered.
The silhouette stepped on to the landing and drew a knife from within its borders. The undertaker reached out with one hand towards Kelly, its gnarled fingers closing on the soft flesh of her throat.
Chapter Forty Four
Rachel stood in the whirl of flame that lapped at the walls of the basement, her skin tightening with the heat while fine fibrous tendrils of black smoke teased the sensitive interior of her throat. The acrid air that stung at her nose and eyes suddenly sweetened and became like sherbet as the choking smell became a hauntingly familiar scent; the scent Helen had always used. The flickering gloom of the basement was replaced by the grey light of an overcast day. The wall before her had been replaced with the view down into the basin of the city from parliament hill. As if a cinema screen had been lowered in front of her. The sky was a cool grey and a cool breeze stirred the golden brown trees before filtering down over her in a w
elcome relief from the heat of the fires.
Helen’s scent grew stronger and Rachel felt her presence at her side.
Rachel couldn’t be shocked by the dead. She had always hoped and wished, but never thought, she would see Helen in this way. Rachel turned to her calmly, aware that the others may clearly see her talking to something they could not see, but she would not let embarrassment restrain her. She scanned Helen from her autumn red hair that fell around her delicate face of snow, to the slim figure wrapped in her large chunky-knit grey jumper, and jeans.
They would often take walks together, Parliament Hill. Highgate cemetery, Primrose Hill, Little Venice. Autumn was their preferred time of year. They both loved the colours, but for Rachel it was a time when Helen became one with the colours of nature and while everyone else was drained of colour Helen glowed. She was always a warm fire on a cold day. She missed those times, being alone together, laughter, tears, long comfortable silences in which she always wanted to tell Helen how she felt about her.
“There’s so much I haven’t told you…” Somehow Rachel was no longer in the basement but wading her way through the leaves with Helen.
Helen took her hand. “I know,” her tone was comforting and reassuring. “I know now. I only wish I had realised in time.”
The ache that had lived with Rachel since she had met Helen built into an abrupt pain as she gave in to all the regrets and chastisement she had for her unsaid words, but then the pain was gone and there was only a feeling of completion and satisfaction. Helen finally knew.
“We all have regrets. I shouldn’t have been so blind,” Helen said kicking lazily at the autumn leaves as they walked.
“It all feels so real,” Rachel said remotely, feeling the sadness that this perfect moment couldn’t last.
“In here…” Helen turned and put a hand on Rachel’s chest, “It’s real enough. The heart and the mind can work magic; we just let reality ground us. All our dreams and hopes are stored here. We can recreate any moment past or any future you wish with a single thought. You are luckier than most because you can actually see and interact with what would normally be gone and be in the past.”
Rachel smiled with the sentiment, wishing the tears away. Helen had a gift of saying poetic things and making life seem magical.
Helen turned around and Rachel followed her, they faced a large screen and they could see into the basement. Rachel could see herself standing with Cat and Craig, waiting for the beast to emerge.
“I’m sorry Cat has been so painful for you.”
“I wanted to be there for her, for you. To help her. To grieve together.”
Helen stroked the image of Cat. “There is a future for you and Cat. A future where she can let herself love you as she does me.”
Rachel’s eyes brimmed with tears. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob and spoke through her faces rigor. “There is?”
“You have a hole in your heart since I left.”
“The hole is for Cat. I kept it for her. Plenty of room for her when she is ready. I’m patient.” Helen looked distracted. The same face Helen she had seen when Helen had told Rachel of the cancer, and then the day she had told her she wouldn’t win her battle.
“That hole might devour you.” Helen breathed. “You have always given everything to me and Cat – so much so you may have little left should anything happen to Cat.”
Rachel looked to Cat with alarm. “What are you saying?”
Helen turned away from the image of the basement and stood between Rachel and Cat. She took Rachel’s hands in hers as she had when she had told her she was dying. “If you follow the path you have chosen, Cat will die.”
“We are all at risk down there.”
“But if you face the beast. Cat will not survive.”
“Don’t say that.” Rachel sagged in Helen’s grip her legs buckling beneath her. “It can’t be – you can’t know for sure.”
“Don’t let fear turn you against an ability that you have always trusted and relied upon. It’s why I am here. I have never needed to come back before, but I saw the future and I had to come.”
“No. You said Cat and I had a future together?”
Helen smiled warmly. “There is a future for you both. What you have chosen to do is noble and brave – what I would expect of you, but it will lead to death and pain.”
A guilty selfishness crawled within Rachel. She could say to the others that she couldn’t sense the thing, that they had got it wrong that they should leave before they got caught by the fire-fighters and police. She could get Cat out.
“Rachel, it is your decision but the course you have chosen has consequences, I will be here for Cat when the time comes as I will be here for you in the future when it is your time.”
Rachel had accepted that what they were doing could be the end for all of them, but she had never considered that she might survive and lose Cat. Cat was all she had left in her life.
“But all the people in this tower… What should we do about them? We can’t abandon – .”
Helen shook her head sagely. “I didn’t mention abandoning the others, but not all battles have to be fought by you or fought alone. Let others fight this one. You are in control of your actions. If you warn them they will listen. If you leave; they will follow.”
Chapter Forty Five
Craig maintained the aim of the nail gun at the locker despite the ache in his arms at holding the weighty tool before him. He glanced around him at the fires that continued to burn steady. He felt vulnerable having the open fire door to the stairs behind him, but Kelly had their backs. But the thing could appear behind them… His nerve went and he craned over his shoulder. Nothing.
Rachel shrieked “Craig!”
Startled he glanced at her, saw the panic in her eyes, her finger stabbing insistently for him to look back at the lockers. The gap was no longer empty. A gaunt pale woman, her blonde hair dirty with grime and dust, matted in places and plastered to her face in others with sweat and blood, stumbled out from between the lockers. Her clothes were filthy with dust and dirt and her staggering exhausted movements all made her appear as if she had crawled out of the ground itself. It wasn’t her presence that startled Craig, but the voice that issued from the dry cracked lips. “Craig. Craig, help me.”
Vicki fell to the floor but continued to crawl away from the lockers. Craig went to lunge towards her when he was halted by Rachel screaming at him.
“No Craig! Look out!”
The undertaker appeared in the gap. Its mouth hung open in a cruel grin.
“Shoot it, Craig!” Cat hissed in his ear from behind him.
Vicki, rolled onto her side and seeing the undertaker behind her, her crawl became a scramble.
This was it. It was starting. Craig looped his fingers round the trigger and felt the cold metal in his sweaty grip. It was strange to think that all he had to do was pull the trigger and he would most likely kill the thing. It was going to be over quicker than he thought. He was glad too. He wanted this over. Wanted to kill the creatures and get Vicki and himself out. There was gnawing doubt in his gut. Why did he hesitate?
“Craig –shoot it!” Cat demanded, her voice losing it’s steadiness in his ear.
Craig’s finger tightened against the resistance of the trigger, but the figure of the undertaker was suddenly replaced by Cat. He remembered Cat had said it might try and get into their heads. Don’t trust your senses. Craig closed his eyes hoping his eyelids would wipe the image of Cat away and reveal the undertaker, he opened them again and found it had worked, the undertaker stood before him raising its knife threateningly at Vicki as it advanced.
Suddenly it was Cat again. “Don’t point that at me!”
Cat’s voice from behind him urged him on. “It’s not me. Shoot it.”
It was using Cat’s appearance to get around him. He channelled all his hate for the trickster-stalker that tried to confuse his mind and focussed it into the finger on the trigger to
loose a stream of nails into its face.
“Don’t point that at me!” Cat snapped at Craig as she stared into the eye of Craig’s nail gun. This was no time to be mucking around. Especially not with that thing. Cat shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, and the nail gun tracked her movements. “Craig, what are you doing?” He didn’t answer. Her voice only seemed to anger him more. He didn’t trust her. Kelly had made it quite clear she didn’t trust her, as had Jason, and Rachel had no reason to trust her after the way she had treated her. The wait for something to happen must have gotten to Craig’s nerve and turned him paranoid.
“Craig it’s me, Cat.” She stepped towards Rachel hoping that he might not risk firing if there was a chance he might hit Rachel. “It’s me I’m on your side.”
Rachel wasn’t stepping in. She still fixed her stare into the gap. Suddenly Cat understood. She could sense tenebrous tendrils reaching out from the gap in the lockers into Craig and Rachel, another snaked its way through the fire escape door and up the stairs with the smoke. To Kelly? It was controlling their minds. Distracting them. Dividing them. Turning them against each other.
“Cat we need to get out of here. The emergency services will be here any minute, and I don’t sense anything down here. I think we were wrong.” Rachel said urgently, oblivious to Cat’s predicament.
Cat turned to her. “Oh, I think were in the right place.”
Rachel pulled at Cat’s arm. “Come on, we are going to get in trouble, and that won’t help anyone.”
“Don’t move! You stay away from her.” Craig shouted at Cat.
The thing was distorting his perception of her struggle with Rachel, but she couldn’t break away from the older woman’s grip. “Craig it’s me.” It was no use.
She closed her eyes and conjured the faces of Craig, Rachel and Kelly, their clothes, the way they stood and moved; every detail that she could imagine. She felt for the muscular portal in her mind and centred on it as she had during her earlier visit to the basement. This time she knew what to expect from loosening the muscle and she channelled as much mental concentration as she could into controlling the volatile power straining within.
Harvest Page 40
