Darker Read online

  Against the lids of her eyes she only saw that blend of black and red. The blood in the lids backlit by light filtering through the skin.

  She tried harder.

  She found herself seeing images of the totem pole outside the museum, with its hook noses, eagles’ beaks and staring gargoyle eyes.

  She forced out the totem images and willed herself to see through Amy’s eyes. Darkness. Just darkness. A blood-red darkness that made her think of the billion miles of nothingness that lies between the stars.

  ‘Damn,’ hissed Richard. ‘What happens now?’

  Joey gripped the back of Richard’s seat. ‘Floor it, you stupid twat. You’ve got to outrun them.’

  ‘Outrun them? They’re driving a Cosworth. They could outrun this in third gear.’

  The siren wailed, the blue lights beat back from the mirror into Richard’s eyes.

  ‘Mum, what’s the police car doing that for?’ Amy twisted round to get a better view.

  ‘Put your foot down, man,’ Joey snarled. ‘You can do it.’

  ‘No. Can we hell,’ Richard snapped.

  ‘Richard’s right,’ Michael said. ‘Richard. Indicate, then pull over. Nice and easy does it.’

  Richard did as he was told. Indicated. Braked lightly and pulled over to the side of the road.

  Rosemary could see nothing. But she realized the truth. She’d thought the man had been running from the thing that had very nearly crushed her as flat as rolled pastry. In a way he was. But now she realized he could call it to him. Like you might call a dog. That’s what he’d done twelve nights ago. But it must have been for something more than the sadistic pleasure of seeing her crushed to a strawberry pulp. He’d planned something. Only it had gone wrong. Now, perhaps, no, shit to perhaps … now he was planning something again. A definite plan as firm as concrete. A plan that would involve that thing she called her Destroyer. And the little girl called Amy.

  He’d leave the little girl alone in a field. Then: he would whistle that thing to him. Only between him and it would be a four-year-old girl.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  She opened her eyes. Standing over her was a middle-aged man. He carried a white stick and wore dark glasses.

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice came in a croak.

  ‘You don’t happen to be looking for someone, do you?’

  ‘Well …’ she began, surprised. ‘Yes. I am.’

  The blind man smiled. ‘I had a feeling you were.’

  ‘But how —’

  ‘But how did I know?’ He smiled. ‘Call it sixth sense. Come on.’ He held out a huge paw of a hand to help her stand.

  ‘But I don’t understand how you knew I was looking for someone.’

  ‘Oh, I knew you were looking for someone. And I know exactly who it is you are looking for. Follow me.’ With the stick tapping, the blind man led her through the crowds.

  The police car’s blue lights filled the car; the siren gave an exultant whooping sound; it had caught its prey.

  Richard felt a black ache press down on him. It was over. God only knew what would happen to them now. Locked in the station interview room he’d glance out of the barred windows waiting for it to come. Like a giant stalking across the roof tops – fee, fi, fo, fum. Then the crash of the roof as it hammered down onto their heads.

  He’d slowed the car to twenty before the police car roared by, siren whooping. Richard stared glassily in front, expecting the police car to brake.

  Incredibly, it accelerated away.

  ‘Jesus,’ Joey whispered. ‘They’re not stopping us. Jesus Christ! They’re not even looking for us!’

  ‘Don’t count your chickens,’ Michael said. ‘What they haven’t got yet is the licence number. It’s a good guess that they are looking for a red car with four adults and a child. Obviously, that cop was in too much of a hurry to notice us.’

  ‘So next time we might not be so lucky,’ said Christine.

  ‘Got it in one.’

  Joey sniffed. ‘We can’t change the colour of the car.’

  ‘But we can change the car,’ Michael replied calmly. ‘I know where we can do that.’

  Richard licked his dry lips. His arms and shoulders ached with tension. When they passed a truck that lay on its side on a roundabout with its load of beer kegs scattered across the road he barely looked at it. Paramedics were working on the trucker who lay flat out in the dirt. Stuff like that was no longer important. Foreign wars weren’t important. Bank robberies weren’t important. Drug dealers slicing each others’ throats weren’t important. Richard’s mind had snapped into hard focus. They were the important ones now. And his sole ambition now was to bring his wife and daughter through it in one piece. The keyword: Survive.

  The same cop who had overtaken him waved their car through. The paramedics covered the trucker’s face with a blanket. Richard put his foot down and powered the car away toward the distant horizon.

  ‘You’ll find who you’re looking for in here.’ The blind man held open the door and Rosemary entered the church.

  ‘Where?’ she asked looking round at the deserted pews.

  ‘Don’t you see him?’

  ‘I think there’s been a mistake.’ Rosemary hugged the holdall to her breast nervously. ‘I’m sorry, good —’

  ‘Don’t you see him? There in the window, all bright and golden.’

  ‘There’s been a mistake. I have to go.’

  ‘There’s no mistake. I know who you’re looking for.’ The blind man’s hand clamped around her elbow. ‘You’re looking for Jesus Christ. Aren’t you? Aren’t you!’

  The fierce grip hurt. She tried to pull away.

  ‘I’ve got to go. Please … let go of me.’

  ‘You’re looking for Jesus Christ. And he’s looking for you.’

  ‘No, please, I’m —’

  ‘Kneel here. We’ll pray together.’

  Roughly he pushed her to her knees. Splitting pains ran up her side from her bruised ribs. He kneeled beside her, one arm round her shoulders to hold her down, using the other great paw of a hand to clamp her hands together in a posture of prayer.

  ‘That’s right,’ he hissed, panting heavily. ‘We’ll pray together. Thank the Lord that He has found you today.’

  Frightened, Rosemary looked round the church. It was deserted. The blind man was too strong for her to break away.

  His grip tightened. ‘Now. Say the words with me.’ When he began the prayer, his voice became hoarse, almost guttural, and instead of his breathing easing he began to pant. ‘Our Father. Which art in Heaven … hallowed be Thy … name.’

  In front of her, Jesus Christ stood smiling down from the stained glass window. A burst of sunlight pierced His eyes. White doves shone pure as milk, the blue of His robe glowed as blue as the sky. Christ’s eyes, a deep soulful brown, looked huge. They seemed to say that he cared deeply for people in trouble. People just like Rosemary Snow.

  As she prayed with the blind man he moved his arm. From above her shoulder to under her armpit. The big fingers groped across the material of the sweatshirt. Found her breast. Then squeezed hard.

  ‘Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come’

  Fingers locked around her right breast, he squeezed harder, cruelly pinching already bruised skin as he recited the prayer.

  ‘… For ever and ever, world without end. Amen.’

  With those brown compassionate eyes of Christ gazing down, Rosemary wept.

  ‘Outrun The Beast?’

  ‘Yes, why can’t you outrun it for good?’ Christine pumped Michael for answers. Richard listened as the car devoured miles of motorway.

  ‘I can’t simply run until I lose it. I … I don’t know the mechanics of it. But I can put enough space between myself and it to give me a few hours respite. But it always finds me again.’

  ‘As if there’s some kind of link between you?’

  ‘I imagine it like this: we’re connected by an invisible length of elastic. It’ll stretch five hundred mil
es, but inevitably it snaps this thing back to me.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘I propose we keep driving. That’ll put some space between us and Beastie.’ He gave a tired smile. ‘Then we get some rest.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right in the short term. In the long term, what happens then?’

  ‘My plan’s very simple. We keep at least a couple of steps ahead of the thing. Meanwhile my people are working on the solution to the problem.’

  ‘Then you can destroy it?’

  ‘Destroy it?’ The man looked back at her; those downturned eyes showing surprise. ‘Destroy it? Good heavens, no. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  By now the blind man was using both hands to knead Rosemary’s breasts. There was no love in this act. He squeezed them with the same brutal strength a sadist would use to crush a puppy.

  Oh, please, Jesus, please … She looked up at the painted Christ in the window. Make him stop, make him stop. He’s hurting, oh … not down there. Don’t let him put his hand down there …

  With one arm still round her, the hand clamping her right breast, his other hand was tugging at the drawstring of her tracksuit trousers. The movements were hurried, clumsy. More like those of a starving man tearing open a bag of biscuits.

  Please, Jesus … make someone come into the church. Make someone stop him … please Jesus. He’s going to hurt me … oh, he’s going to hurt me so much, I know it.

  The brown Christ eyes gazed down.

  Then she knew the only way the blind man would stop this was if she did the stopping. By now he’d let go of her hands so he could tug at the drawstring.

  She snatched up the holdall from by her side and swung it at his face.

  ‘Uckkk.’ The grunt was surprise as much as pain. The blow was no worse than being hit in the face with a pillow. He scrabbled for her throat but she swung the bag again; this time it knocked off his dark glasses.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.

  He looked at her with a single bloodshot eye. There wasn’t a second eye. Only an empty socket. The sheer size of the socket was shocking. It looked like an open toothless mouth where the eye should have been. As red as the inside of a mouth, it was big enough to accommodate a hen’s egg.

  ‘Damn … ungrateful … bitch.’ he hissed. ‘Damn … bitch. Come here.’

  She was quicker to her feet than him. This time she gave the holdall a full-blooded swing. For some reason – Rosemary couldn’t understand why – the bag stuck to his face. He wasn’t holding it with his hands but something was holding it there. She yanked hard.

  As the bag pulled free he screeched.

  Then she knew. The holdall buckle had lodged in that huge, empty eye socket.

  As he screeched he fell back against the stone slabs. ‘Bastard bitch!’

  Rosemary backed away, looking down at the man as she did so. He managed to sit up. He swore and pressed the palm of his hand to the eye socket. A thin yellow liquid trickled over his thumb. The other eye glared at her fiercely. ‘Come here. I’m going to sod you till ya split. Bastard bitch!’

  She had decided to turn and run. But then she stopped. Something made her change her mind.

  With a burst of rage she kicked as hard as she could. Her trainer smacked solidly between the man’s legs.

  Roaring, he jumped to his feet.

  She put her hands up in front of her face expecting a beating. The man made two paces towards her before the pain in his testicles registered.

  ‘Oh-ck … Oh … bast … oh …’ With both hands clutching between his legs he slumped down on to the floor. He drew his knees up to his chest into a foetal position, coughing and groaning.

  Then Rosemary surprised herself again. She marched up the aisle to the altar. There she glared up at the Christ who gazed benignly down. ‘Thanks for nothing.’ Savagely she stuck her middle finger into the air. Then she turned and swept down the aisle. The man had managed to make it to his knees. Coughing a silver trail of spit from his mouth.

  She aimed another kick at his belly. He squealed shrilly, then fell puking to the floor.

  Rosemary stormed from the church. She was looking for a car.

  She had no idea how to steal one. But she’d learn fast.

  Nothing on this Earth could stop her now.

  Chapter 31

  Symbiosis

  Richard drove north at Michael’s suggestion. Richard noticed that Michael still kept the haversack between his feet on the car’s floor. He almost gripped it with his knees as if it contained something precious and he was afraid someone would try and snatch it from him. What’s in there? wondered Richard. When it seemed as if the police car would pull them over Richard had noticed Michael slip his hand surreptitiously inside the flap and down into the rucksack as if he was trying to feel for something at the bottom of the bag. At the first opportunity, Richard decided, he’d take a look in there. And see what it contained that was so important.

  Meanwhile, Christine still asked Michael questions. And he still answered in a polite, even friendly way that suggested he was eager to tell them everything he knew about what followed him … well, followed them all now, Richard told himself, seeing as they were all infected. They were all connected to the Beast by something that Michael had likened to a piece of invisible elastic.

  We can get away from it for a while; then it comes twanging back …

  ‘But why don’t you destroy it?’ Christine persisted, leaning forward, hands gripping her knees. ‘It’s dangerous. It will kill you.’

  ‘It’s as dangerous as a knife, Christine. With a knife you can cut someone’s throat. Or if you’re a surgeon you can cut out a cancer.’

  ‘You’re saying it depends on who controls it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want to be the one to have that control? Why?’

  ‘To improve the world we live in. The emperors and kings who entered into this symbiotic relationship with the Beast in the past built huge empires; their subjects were happy and prosperous.’

  ‘Symbiotic?’ Joey sounded out of his depth. ‘What the hell’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘Symbiosis,’ Michael said, looking back at Joey. ‘It’s a term used in biology. It means any mutually beneficial association between two or more dissimilar organisms.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s where creatures of different species help one another to survive. You’ll have seen examples before, you know, like sharks and pilot fish. They swim so closely together that it looks as if they’re glued together. The pilot fish eats parasites that stick to the shark’s skin. The shark protects the pilot fish from other predators.’

  Christine asked shrewdly, ‘And what does the Beast get in return?’

  ‘I think it experiences life through us.’

  ‘Experiences life? Do you mean —’

  ‘Sorry, Christine. Pull into this service station. I imagine we can safely fill the tank now. And anyone who wants to go to the toilet grab your chance. Only don’t hang around. OK?’

  Within ten minutes they were on their way again. Richard felt happier seeing the petrol gauge hard on full.

  Christine still wanted to know more. ‘So you’re saying that for thousands of years this Beast thing has been prowling round the eastern end of the Mediterranean seeking out suitable partners for a symbiotic relationship?’

  ‘In a nutshell, yes.’

  ‘If this Beast thing has played such a large part in history why isn’t its existence better documented?’

  ‘People who used the Beast kept it a closely guarded secret. After all, you don’t want your enemies getting their hands on something that gives you the edge over your competitor.’

  ‘Surely they had to share it with someone,’ Richard said.

  ‘You can speculate they did share it with some close confidantes. But only rarely. Remember, we’re talking about people who, although rulers of empires, often were so insecure about their leadership that they’d have th
eir closest friends murdered in case they challenged their leadership.’

  ‘So,’ Christine said thoughtfully. ‘These rulers either told their successor about the Beast on their death bed, and instructed them how to enter into that relationship with it or …’

  ‘Or the secret died with them. As it must have done time and time again. Again, you can look at a list of Byzantine Emperors and you realize that there’d be a whole run of leaders who didn’t enter that relationship and as a consequence the Empire crumbled, whole armies deserted, the treasure houses became empty.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered the question, though,’ said Christine. ‘When you manage to regain this power, what do you intend to do with it?’

  There was a pause as Michael thought of an answer. Then, from the back seat, Amy asked suddenly, ‘Who’s Rosemary Snow?’

  Chapter 32

  Power Over Men

  Mayor’s Walk. The name of the residential road made Rosemary think of something extremely respectable, extremely prestigious. It was. And Rosemary thought it was the ideal place for her to steal the car.

  The walk from the town had exhausted her; her leg ached mercilessly. But she wanted to be well away from those paddle hands of the bastard who had groped her in the church. I hope the twat chokes on his own vomit, she thought savagely as she limped along the road looking for a suitable car.

  Her anger had become an energy now. Powering her on so she could nail the bastard who’d given her a Frankenstein face.

  As she had guessed, on a millionaire’s road like this there were plenty of cars in the long sweeping drives – BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars. But they were in clear view of the houses. The moment she walked into a garden there was a danger she’d be seen from a house window.

  Come on, come on, she thought. Time’s running out. She still didn’t know how to find the stranger and the family he’d somehow gotten under his power. She only knew she had to be out on the road, searching, searching, searching – until she found the bastard – then she’d slice holes in his face so big you could put your hand inside his head.

  Ahead lay a house with a garden full of trees as high as the rooftops. Great clumps of bushes blossomed from the sides of the drive.