Fallow Heart

by K. C. Finn

  KASABIAN: Mine was almost 6 months.

  His reply sank deep into her chest. Six months. She had barely gone three weeks, and two people were already dead, with one more just out of intensive care. She could still see the wide-eyed terror in Huw’s eyes, the tremble of his lips as they mouthed the word she had given him. Demon. You’ve named yourself.

  I can’t, Lori typed. She paused, deleted the words, and started again. How am I supposed to sleep when I might go out and hurt someone?

  Her mother’s sudden snort shot through the thin walls of the caravan. Lori listened for a moment. The gentle rumble of Mum’s snoring fell into the background once more. All those times that Lori had wandered out of the van in her sleep, she’d never once attacked her mother. Perhaps she was lucky that Yvonne slept so deeply from the booze. If she’d gotten in Lori’s way, there was no telling what her demon-self might have done. She swallowed, coaxing her throat with a finger and thumb. It made her think of Huw’s bandaged neck. Some of those gashes had been dangerously deep. If Matilda hadn’t stepped in when she did…

  The phone vibrated in Lori’s hand. She swiped it to life sharply.

  KASABIAN: Think of the strain you’ll put your body under if you’re not sleeping. It’s bad enough when you’re stressed, right? I guess it’s keeping calm that helps me. Separate the anger and the worry out.

  Lori frowned. That was easy for him to say. He’d had so long to work on balancing his demon side, almost two years in fact. Lori tapped the phone, watching the lock-screen bounce. Two years. She skewed her face, pouting in the dark. The boys she had seen in the Group A ward showed clear signs of deterioration, and their so-called ‘saturation’ points were around a year after receiving the demon’s touch. Kasabian was almost double that time now, and looking pretty fine for it. Lori allowed herself a moment to think of him. Dark hair and sienna skin. Muscles rippling under his tattoos. No sign of horns or a forked tongue.

  What kind of demon are you? She typed.

  She waited in the darkness. Her eyes were growing heavy, a dull ache between the lids and the brows. Lori closed them, watching a square of white light flash behind them. Her head bobbed, and she caught herself suddenly, teeth clashing together. Shaking her head, Lori shifted to lie on her belly. She propped her heavy head up with one arm. The phone buzzed.

  KASABIAN: I don’t know. I never stuck around at the DC long enough to find out.

  Lori furrowed her brow.

  But what can you do? She typed.

  There was less of a pause this time.

  KASABIAN: I’ll show you. When we’re next together.

  Lori’s chest grew tight, but wasn’t the unpleasant feeling she’d been having the last few days.

  When will that be?

  She lay down, head turned to the side, watching the phone. Though her body ached for rest, a shiver of nerves ran through every limb. She saw the conversation light up again.

  KASABIAN: Soon. Get some rest xxx

  Kisses. Had a boy ever put kisses on anything for her before? She couldn’t remember any. Lori watched her phone until the screen timed out, the eerie glow fading from her bedroom. She rolled onto her back, upside-down on her narrow bed, one hand still clutching her mobile. Keeping calm was supposed to help, according to Kasabian. Lori shut her eyes.

  She tried to imagine calming things. But the peaceful swell of the ocean suddenly became the freezing black slosh of the river at night. A gentle forest walk brought her crashing into the dirt where the paint can and the antlers had been buried in wet soil. And the crackle of a cosy log fire turned swiftly to the burning eyes of the beast, her body coursing with wild, fearful heat.

  There was a buzzing, and Lori realised that she was waking up to it. Her fitful visions had gone from thoughts to nightmares as she’d slipped out of consciousness, and now she was awake again. It was still quiet. Still dark. At least she was still in her room. The buzzing went on, and Lori flapped around in the darkness to find her phone. The screen was black. She brought it to life, hissing at the sudden brightness of the date and time. 02:53. The buzzing went on. It wasn’t coming from her hand.

  She sat up on the bed, holding her breath, listening hard for the source of the sound. It was definitely in the room with her. Somewhere close to the foot of the bed. Lori used her phone like a torch, leaning down in the mess of bags and shoes wedged between the wall and her narrow bed. The buzzing stopped. Lori huffed out a breath, staring into the pile of stuff. She swiped at a few shoes, pushing them aside.

  The buzzing began again, somewhere near her hand. As she felt around a little more, Lori’s fingers came to rest against a bag she often stored her college stuff in when she wasn’t using it. The bag went on vibrating. She fumbled for the opening, reaching deep within to pull out the source of the noise.

  It was Granddad’s phone: the one she’d borrowed when hers was missing. As Lori fished it out, she squinted at the display. A name came into view, along with a sudden snort of surprise:

  CARL WALKER

  The detective was calling her grandfather. In the middle of the night. Lori hovered one thumb over the call. She couldn’t answer. There was no way to pretend to be Granddad, and the last thing she wanted was to speak to Walker again herself. But she desperately wanted to know why he was phoning at such a late hour. He phoned once more, three missed calls in all. The old phone sank back into a dark silence. Lori unlocked the screen, clearing the calls. She opened Walker’s contact page, finding nothing except his name and number, so she opened her grandfather’s message inbox.

  He was pretty good with technology for an old man, able to work and smartphone and a laptop, but it turned out he wasn’t so great with security. He hadn’t cleared his contacts, call register or messages from the old phone. And from this, Lori discovered that her grandfather knew how to use group messaging too. There was a conversation between Carl Walker, her grandfather and Agnes Dimmock. Lori scrolled, amazed by the countless messages that filled the screen. There had to be hundreds, dating back a couple of years to when Granddad had first got the phone. Lori could remember Mum buying him this one for his 83rd birthday.

  She thought of Sister Agnes, calling Walker inside at the funeral when her grandfather had arrived with the news about Huw. They’d been together before that too, talking in the confessional. Lori started to read parts of the sprawling conversation, trying to make sense of it:

  CARL: He keeps babbling about the beast

  and the false prophet. I know it’s sort of

  religious but beyond that I’m lost. Does

  it mean anything to you?

  YOU: Give me a little while to search.

  AGNES: On it too, Carl. Get back to

  you ASAP.

  AGNES: Got it. Revelation 20:10. And the

  devil, who deceived them, was thrown into

  the lake of burning sulphur, where the beast

  and the false prophet had been thrown. They

  will be tormented day and night for ever

  and ever.

  YOU: Sounds like your killer drowned

  their victims? This is the serial killer

  case out at Nantwich Lake, isn’t it?

  CARL: You didn’t hear that from me Tim.

  I can’t confirm or deny.

  Lori scrolled on through the texts. There were more quotes from the Bible, more questions that Detective Walker had for Agnes and her grandfather. From what she could gather, they’d been helping him to solve a murder case about two years ago, where some religious nutter had been ‘baptising’ people at Nantwich Lake, a little way out of Chester. Lori could vaguely remember the case being on the local news a while back, lots of drowned bodies covered in tarpaulin. She blinked against the dim backlight of the old phone. Her old Granddad was out there solving crimes. A smile slunk its way to Lori’s face in the darkness. She wanted to laugh, but her mother’s gentle snoring reminded her not to.

  The phone in her hand lit up. No buzzing this time, but a qui
ck scroll told her that Walker hadn’t given up on trying to get in touch. He had sent a fresh text through, and Lori could see that the dates between this one and the last he’d sent to Granddad were about five months apart. As her eyes travelled over the words, her smile grew smaller. Tightness gripped her jaw, a shiver slowly forming like fingertips walking up her spine.

  CARL: Tim, please pick up. I know I said

  I didn’t believe you when you told me what

  Huw had seen. But I’ve found a trail.

  Antlers, just like he said.

  Lori mouthed the words, lips opening and closing. She shook her head. The phone flashed again.

  CARL: Whatever it is, I’m on its trail.

  Still hoping it’s some sicko in a costume…

  Either way, I’m going to need you.

  Agnes too.

  There was a buzz from her other phone. She glanced at the short message as it popped up on her screen:

  KASABIAN: U still awake?

  It seemed like a long time before Lori moved. She felt like the slightest shift would bring Walker barging into the room. What did he mean by ‘on its trail’? Could he have been out at Fir Trees, digging things up? Her knuckles grew stiff where they clutched the old mobile, her jaw so tight it made her teeth ache. A terrible new thought came crashing into her head. Addison. Mad Addy the wild swimmer, who had found her digging up the antlers and the spray can. How had long had it been since she’d asked him to keep those terrible things hidden? If Walker had noticed him at the riverbank, like most people did, would it have taken long to get that terrible information out of him?

  Lori got to her feet. She shoved both phones into her bag and slipped a tracksuit on over her pyjamas. A reply for Kasabian would have to wait. She needed to know what was going on first. She fumbled for her trainers in the dark, causing another snort from the room next door, but after a moment her mother was in a deep sleep once again. Lori crept from her room and down the narrow corridor of the van, edging her way towards an empty vodka bottle that had rolled into the doorway in the night. She bent down and picked it up, nose skewed at the smell.

  As she opened the van door, the chilly night air sent a wonderful wave of cool over her face. It was raining out, and for the first time Lori didn’t mind getting drenched. The drizzle soaked into the grey fabric of her trackies, cool water seeping through to her skin. She clung to the neck of the bottle, raising it slightly. The moon gave Fir Trees Park a silver-green glow, but her eyes were only able to make out the black masses of the far-off vans at the tree-line. If there was anything else waiting for her there, she couldn’t see it. Lori licked her dry lips, hefting the weight of the bottle from one hand to the other.

  You’re strong now, she told herself. You threw a woman across a room. You smashed through solid wood. You got this.

  She knew Addy’s van from the time before, but when she got there she went to the dirt patches surrounding it first. It didn’t look like there’d been any new burials, or anything dug up. She hadn’t woken up with dirt under her nails in a while, so all Lori could do was hope that that was a good sign. There were no lights on in the windows of his van. She’d never asked him whether he lived alone or not. To look at, he only seemed three or four years older than her, but she supposed it was possible that he had parents out here. After all, that was the reason she was stuck here. If he lived at Fir Trees by choice, that’d make him even weirder than before.

  She pushed at the van door. It didn’t budge. Steadying the bottle between her knees, Lori gave the door a hard smack, both palms flat. It buckled a little, but didn’t open. The sound was heavy, echoing through the empty air, cutting past the sound of rain. If there was anyone inside, they would have heard it. Lori gave two more smacks, each one a little harder. On the last one, something inside the van clanged, a metallic echo reverberating as the thin door swung open. Lori took the bottle up again, peering into the dark doorway.

  If Addy did live with parents, they must have been easy-going, because the guy had stuff all over the place. Lori took her phone out to light the living area, which was half the size of hers and mum’s, only to find it piled high with the swimmer’s belongings. Towels were draped out to dry on every surface, with swim shorts and speedos hanging from a line across the living room. A pile of books occupied one corner of the built-in sofa, whilst bottles of fizzy pop were piled in a pyramid on the other. Addy seemed to have cleared only one space beside a table laden with cereal boxes and used glasses. Before the space, there was a notebook left open.

  Lori stepped in, and the floor of the van gave a little moan. She listened, but heard nothing from the corridor that led further into the van. She knew better than anyone how thin those kinds of walls were, so she leaned across and swiped the book without taking any more steps. She took it out into the moonlight, flipped open on her palm, still grasping the bottle in her free hand just in case. It took a squinty-eyed moment to make out Addy’s scrawl:

  Sunday 23rd – 1:41 am to 2:05

  Monday 24th – 2:44 am to 3:53

  Tuesday 25th – nothing

  Wednesday 26th –

  The record went up to tonight. Lori flipped back and found that there were times for the week before on the previous page. And for almost two weeks before that. Were they swimming times? Records of how long Addy had spent in the water at night, perhaps? He was certainly strange enough to keep these things logged. Lori turned on the step and set them down in the doorway of the van. She looked back into the darkness of Addy’s home, wondering where he’d hidden the antlers. If she rifled through his stuff now, she could take them away, hiding any and all evidence that she knew of from Walker.

  She was about to step back in, when there was a flicker in the corner of her eye. Lori paused, staring at the doorway of the van before her. Eyes sharp. Bottled clutched firmly. Something had changed. She had a feeling. The sensation of prickles in her spine and all over her back, like she was being watched suddenly. Lori scanned the van’s wall, eyes sliding up to the dark pane of the window. She held her breath.

  There was a figure right behind her. It was too dark to identify, and skewed to impossibly tall proportions by the angle of the window. About six feet behind her, Lori reckoned. As she kept her breath in, she heard its flowing out. A single exhalation among the patter of the rain. There were no antlers. This wasn’t the Visitation, she realised with relief. So whatever it was that was behind her, Lori could handle it. She readjusted the bottle in her grip and let out the breath.

  You got this.

  The reflected figure moved, and Lori swung around on the spot. She charged into the muddy earth, swinging the bottle upwards. It caught her assailant under the chin and Lori heard a cry of agony. She staggered away, getting herself out from between the van and the attacker, then circled back to see who it was. The man in the mud gave a loud groan, rubbing his jaw. He sat up, hissing, then looked up at Lori with large, dark eyes.

  “I think I just bit the end of my tongue off.”

  “Mr Allardyce?” Lori breathed.

  She didn’t let go of the bottle, but she let it sway by her side as she got closer to the D.C. man again. Allardyce was still sharp-suited, even in the dead of night, and when he got to his feet he did his best to slap some of the mud and rainwater off his back. It had little effect on his ruined clothes.

  “Looks like I didn’t need to read Audrey’s strength report on you.” He grinned.

  “Sorry,” Lori mumbled, though she wasn’t sure that she was. She took a step away from the tall figure. “What are you doing here?”

  “After what happened the other day at the D.C., I feel you’re owed some answers.”

  Lori folded her arms, the bottle nestled against one side of her stomach.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” she said. “You can start by telling me how the projected saturation thing works.”

  Allardyce raised a brow, still grinning. He approached, but Lori took another step away. He raised his palms to her.
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  “I’m not with the D.C. tonight.” He put one hand to his chest. “You’re not Miss Blake right now. We’re Greg and Lorelai, two people having a conversation.”

  “After one snuck up on the other in the middle of the night,” Lori added quickly.

  Allardyce’s smiled faded.

  “My bad.” He nodded. “I wanted to find you so I could introduce you to someone who might offer better help than the D.C. can. Someone from your world.”

  Lori tightened her folded arms. “And you couldn’t do that in the daytime with a text message?”

  Who was this guy? She’d already spotted how good a liar Allardyce was from his little stint with Lyons, and now he was on her patch in the middle of the night. She looked at his large, empty hands. He knew how strong she was now, stronger than him. If he’d wanted to attack her, surely he would have come armed. The thought comforted Lori a little. Allardyce sighed, a different sort of grin appearing. He shook his head.

  “‘Saturation’ is the D.C.’s pretty way of saying ‘death’.”

  The words hung on the moisture in the air. Lori could almost see them before her. It was what she’d feared, what she’d seen and tried not to believe. She swallowed hard and uncrossed her arms, feeling them shake a little.

  “If I’m going to die from either the Harvest or Saturation, why do I need your ‘someone’ with their so-called ‘help’?” Lori asked.

  Allardyce stepped forward, and this time Lori didn’t recoil. He looked her dead in the eye, and there was something sparkling there. The look she’d seen when he’d discovered her in the records room. The look he’d had when he was toying with the keypad and talking to Lyons in the corridor.

  “Because he’s the only one who can keep you alive.”

  He held out his hand. Sideways, as though they were meeting again for the first time. But Lori’s eyes never left his as he spoke again.

  “Will you let me introduce you? You’ve got nothing to lose. Except your life, of course.”

  Lori reached out, but it was only to drop the bottle. She pointed ahead, into the darkness that lead out of Fir Trees. Her skin was beautifully cool with rain, a new strength coursing in her nerves. Allardyce’s outstretched hand lowered, unanswered.