Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood)

by Wendy Maddocks

  A scream echoed through Katie’s head so loud that she wondered the whole house didn’t come running, but she realised no-one else could hear. And suddenly, she understood. Her hand slid down whatever was left of his arm and twisted their fingers together. She took a breath and stepped into the mist, cursing her own stupidity. She had done a dozen stupid things recently but she had to do this one too. Unless she was willing to give Jack up. Whilst she wasn’t sure that would exactly break her heart, she couldn’t live with herself knowing she had condemned him to this life of hurting forever. “Where are we going?”

  “You tell me.” Oh goody. Another decision she had to make.

  “I don’t know how to fix any of this, Jack.” There was something, though – a tiny slippery idea that didn’t yet have words. “What did I do to deserve any of this? I wanted to learn, compete, make friends, maybe fall in love. Trying not to get killed never even registered.”

  “I know you blame me.” Katie started to protest but Jack put a finger over her lips and began to talk once more but his words were whipped away as her room fell away around them. Air rushed through her ears as the work got suddenly dark and cold. Some change in the atmosphere told Katie that she was going somewhere she didn’t want to go and that when she got there she would be all alone.

  “Wakey, wakey, little girl,” a voice singsonged a few feet away. There was no joy or music in it, just meanness and hate. “There’s fun to be had.”

  Katie felt the press of rough concrete against her face, the tightness of her muscles where she had been curled in a foetal ball on the ground. It was to be expected and Katie only felt a mild sense of annoyance. She kept her eyes closed a while longer and let her mind roam. Thinking of anything was better than having to open her eyes and see the bad man’s cruel face and see that whip again. He knew how to use his weapon of choice.

  “I’m gonna make you scream until your voice breaks and no-one can hear you.”

  “Screw you,” she threw at him, knowing her words had less strength to them than a feather lifting a lead weight.

  “Not right now,” he replied. “But a nice thought. And the question you’re afraid to ask… What did Jack do?”

  Please. I don’t want to know this.

  “Well, you see.” As the man spoke he began pacing in front of the gated circle. Katie watched him stride up and down, up and down, his boot heels beating a rhythm hat never seemed to slow or quicken, the steady bumf bumf bumf she remembered from her dreams. More pieces of the jigsaw clicked into place but she couldn’t tell what the picture was yet. She was trying to work out what to do next when the swish of the man’s coat revealed a metallic glint about waist high. Knife. She knew it as certainly as anything before. He was carrying a knife – a weapon that could deliver death in one well-placed blow.

  If he got close enough to use it.

  “Your precious Jack, the innocent little boy with the bright green eyes, isn’t all that he seems. He stole from me, he broke into my house, he took my money and my horse and then he tried to run away. Like he thought I’d never know.”

  “it was a hundred… two hundred years ago. Whatever.”

  “Oh, it was a time ago.”

  “And that was punishable by death?”

  “Those things were MINE!” he roared, angry now. “And now I’m gonna take something of his.”

  “You’re killing him every night. He relives the night you killed him all the time; the same pain, the same blood, the same storm. Every time it’s exactly the same and I – I think I get it now.”

  The man flicked the whip out and the sonic boom rang in Katie’s ears. She flinched, yelped and tried to scuttle even further back. At least she had a tiny bit of safety in her mesh cage.

  “I was there. Not just the other night but all the time. You didn’t know it was me. Hell, I didn’t know it was me, but you knew there was someone else watching.” Katie sat up straight, ignoring her reluctant muscles, quite proud of herself for having worked that part out. “And once you knew who I was, it was just a matter of hunting me down.” There was a dull ache in her stomach – hunger. Her body didn’t like the way she was abusing it. And yet knowing that she had put herself through the past few days without completely falling apart filled her with happiness. “So. I’m here now. What’re you gonna do to me?”

  “I’m gonna-“

  “Make me scream? Yeah, you wish.” Katie knew she was borrowing heavily from what Jaye would say in this situation but she reckoned she had just about enough attitude to make it sound believable. In one movement, fast and fluid, the man with hate in his eyes had strode over to force his fingers through the chain link gate and was grinning down at her. There were calluses across his knuckles. They were strong, sure hands – those of a man who had earned his living from them. There was something beautiful about that – dying at the hands of a man who knew how to use them. Poetic. Terrifying. Katie scrambled to her feet – aware once again that she was almost the same as him. Were people that much shorter in the olden days? She curled her legs up to her chest and spent a few minutes tying and retying her running shoes. She had a feeling moving fast was going to be the order of the day - night – and she had no desire to trip and break her neck. Then, when they were as secure as they could possibly be without using superglue, Katie raised her head and stared the man straight in the eye. Not glancing away from the blind anger she saw burning there was almost impossibly difficult but worth it. After a minute or two, the man let his smile slip, the anger faded to a violent shade of confusion.

  “Don’t worry, little girl. I’ll make it quick,” he promised. There was no doubt that he meant it too.

  Katie fixed her eyes on that piece of metal she could see glittering at his waist. If she could reach over and grab it maybe she could stab him with it. Or slice her way through the string that kept them apart and make a run for it through the other side. Why hadn’t he grabbed for his knife yet, used it and left her to bleed to death in this place where no-one would ever find her? Because this wasn’t the real world and he could do what he wanted.

  He saw where Katie was looking and tapped it with the end of his whip. “My badge of honour,” he said.

  “Why don’t you use it, then? I’m standing right here.” Not close enough, hopefully, to use it to much effect.

  He finger-walked down the gate and rested on the latch to open the gate. He seemed to toy with it for an eternity. Katie watched every twitch of his fingers, fascinated. All it would take was a minute. Probably less than that, just to slip the catch out of the hook, push the gate open and plunge that evil glittering blade int her heart. How long did it take a person to bleed to death from a hole in the heart. Minutes? Moments? That’s why he won’t do it. It’s too quick, too easy. He wants to make you suffer for as long as he can. “Come on in,” she offered, stepping to the side. “Sorry, I dint bake a cake but sweet treats for murderers are where I draw the line.”

  “Murderer? I’m more of an executioner.” He stepped back and brought his whip down on the lock. It popped open and the gate started a slow swing as he walked forward, slow and menacing.

  He had given her an escape to her cage, she bounced off her feet and got about one step to the door when she realised he wasn’t giving her an escape. He was going to stand in the door and kill her right here so she could just see her route to safety a couple of feet away as she died. No, this can’t happen here. It’s not meant to be here. “JACK!” she yelled, instinct more than anything else.

  But he didn’t come.

  Instead, the man stretched out with his free hand grabbed her by the wrist, spun her hard into him, and they misted out of the stadium. It felt like forever being trapped in his arms. They were locked together and she looked into his face. He was about the same age as Dad, maybe a little younger, there were lines on his tanned, weather-beaten face and a square, determined set to his jaw. She closed her eyes for a second and let her muscles fall limp. There was nothing to look at although she had
the loosest feeling of moving. The worst the hateful man could do while he was holding he was strangle her and she would feel that long before it began to present serious problems. There was no use in being hyper-alert, tensed and ready to run, if there wasn’t even any solid ground in sight.

  The man, the mist, the moving, it all disappeared. Very suddenly, the world was hers again and there was a weird feeling as Katie’s own body turned to solid. It was as though her bones didn’t fit so exactly any more. Bizarre. But she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on the matter at hand. Which was not falling to a horrible, messy death. She had a quick second to question where the man had gone and why when she was so vulnerable in his grip. It had felt like… like he was taken rather than just abandoned his victim. At least he was off her back for a few minutes. The reprieve might not last long. Katie was determined to make the most of however long she had.

  Why do things never go to plan?

  It took a second or two for the shock of hitting ground to kick in. Truthfully, hitting ground was a bit of an over-statement. Falling to the floor was a bit more accurate. The impact jarred Katie’s muscles but she bounced lightly on the surface like collapsing onto an unbroken mattress. Everything was tired. No rest for the wicked. She rolled over and sprang to her feet, looking wildly around her trying to figure out if anyone was near her and where the hell she was. It looked familiar. The dark of night was so total out here that only the moon and stars illuminated the endless empty ground around here. A few patches of scrubby grass marked the edges of the land. The thrum of power in this place was so strong that she decided to call it an arena. In the daylight, this place would be instantly recognisable, but now it was strange and new, however anciently powerful it felt. Katie crossed her legs beneath her and pushed up, using the position to twist right around and get a full view. No. there was nobody else here. She was on her own out here and-

  The storm is coming, Lady Katie. The storm is nearly here.

  And I’m standing right in the middle of it, she thought, with a certainty she didn’t know she had. The skies opened their lungs and let out a rumble of thunder somewhere over the next town. She dropped into a crouch, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. “Come on,” she screamed at the sky, distantly conscious of tears coursing down her cheeks. Well, she was entitled to cry after the week she had had.

  “Jack, help me!”

  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t turn up. What was she expecting? Him to come out of the mist on a white steed and take her away from this madness? When her dreams weren’t so damn dangerous the image might feature.

  Footsteps drilled the ground, a poison red whip mark carved the sky, a scream howled through the night, endless and ear splitting. But no-one was in this empty arena. For now, it was her and the coming storm. She was just waiting for the onslaught to arrive.

  You’re not meant to feel us, you know.

  Katie whirled, trying to see where the voice had come from..

  You shouldn’t be able to hear.

  And she knew. Like everything else tonight, she had visions of the knowledge slipping away from her as soon as it appeared. So she sprang on it. The voice, dark but peaceful, not friendly but not mean, a thousand voices but just one tone.

  Death is coming for you. It came to us all.

  “You’re all ghosts. Lost souls or something.”

  We were the unlucky ones. It is not time for you to join us yet.

  “I don’t think I get to decide that one.”

  You must find a way to change that, to set things back as they should be.

  “But-“

  You must find a way. you will.

  Didn’t expect much of her, did they? Katie began kicking her legs up behind her, trying to coax her muscles into co-operating. The second – could be third – wave of wakefulness crept into her, bringing with it fresh rolls of agony from parts of her that had shrieked themselves into silence. It hurt so much! Red Bull had a lot to answer for. “I can’t!” Didn’t they believe her?

  Child, you have no idea what you can do. So few humans truly do. If this voice of many could hold any emotion, it would have been sad, grieving almost. We will help you all we can. But this is not our fight.

  “It’s not mine either. I never asked for it.”

  Thunder rumbled a way off but still a way of. The rain hadn’t even – yes, yes it had started. Through squinty eyes, Katie could see hard lines of rain driving slices through the air all around the make shift arena. The collected ghosts here had pooled their energies against rain and formed some kind off forcefield above her to keep the rain off. Otherwise, it would be like a giant mud bath in about five minutes flat. “He’s so much stronger than me.”

  Stronger yes. Older too. He thinks the crime justifies the punishment, the ever-lasting punishment. He believes in justice. He believes in the law and in his sense of right and wrong. He is misguided.

  Katie grunted and fell back to the floor, feeling as though an invisible fist had punched her in the stomach. The breath whooshed out of her lungs and she felt image after image, sound after sound, being shoved into her head. Acid poison pain screaming help mercy blood stinging no stop crackle lightning noise hate everywhere… Katie saw the back of a man, his shoulders hunched and tight, in the sick yellow glow of a lamp. She looked down and saw her off-white trainers staining with blood. The man took his long coat off and slung it over a bale of straw in front of her. She dashed forward and hid behind it, not doubting for a second that the man would take her down if he had half the chance. Although x-ray vision was a superpower she didn’t have, Katie was sure Jack lay beaten and broken in the main area of the barn, where the madman was focusing, slumped in front of the same pile of dried grass. And she couldn’t save him.

  The knowledge tore through her like a sticking plaster being peeled off, fast but damn painful no matter what your mother said. Something incredibly cold and numb swept through her. Every ache and pain faded, still burning her inside and out, but Katie paid no attention. The sounds she could hear – the soft grunts of a man too tired to yell out, the incessant lashing of leather on flesh, the dark laughter of a murderer and his victim refusing to give in. All of that was coming to her. She bobbed her head up and had to bite back a squeak when something glinty, silvery and horribly pointy came whirling towards her. It landed heavily on the crumpled hide coat in front of her. She held her breath for a few long seconds and tried not to move until the bad man had thudded away and returned to his torture then shot her arm out and grabbed the silvery disk. It didn’t feel like a knife but there were sharp points on it. Good for stabbing, or at least holding him at a distance so he didn’t get stabbed. Her fingers rubbed over some uneven ridges in the metal disk. She brought it to her face and then angled it this way and that until it caught the light enough to see.

  Oh, crap. He thinks he’s justified to do this.

  Or, maybe the man with hate in his eyes was acting outside the law and he wanted to silence her before she could tell anyone what she saw. And maybe he just wants to kill you because he’s a sadistic bastard. Because, lying in her hands was a sheriff’s badge. The man was enforcing 19th century law. Was capital punishment acceptable back then? Katie rubbed her fingers over the badge and suddenly felt it disappear. She even felt herself disappear. There was blood soaking through the straw she stood on, seeping under the wooden wall between her and them. it was getting ground into her sole. It would probably never come out.

  Katie opened her eyes and stared up at the swirling, grey-blue sky. She didn’t want to move. Or think. In fact, just keeping breathing was making her lungs ache. Lactic acid was flowing through her now. The desire to just roll over right here and now and fall asleep for a very long time was almost irresistible. Almost.

  Just as the internal debate was raging, a shadow – black on black – shimmered off to her left. Her face hurt when she rolled over to get a better look.

  He is coming, the voice said.

  S
he shielded her eyes with one weak hand and hoped that her frazzled mind was playing cruel tricks on her. The shadowed figure looked – it looked like Dina. What the hell was she doing out here?

  It’s nearly here. this isn’t right, Katie.

  “Help me, Dina.” Katie needed to shout to make herself heard over the storm now but her vocal chords were so raw that a hoarse whisper was all she could muster. Dina seemed to hear though, it even looked as though she smiled as she reached out to the girl with one hand and thrust the other into the darkness behind her.

  You must be ready, she said, her voice becoming more alien with every step she crept back, more ethereal, more voices joining hers as purple-black fingers began to cover Dina. The air was crackling with dark power. These dead things, this sense of death all around her, was so powerful. There should be nothing here but here it all was shooting out of Dina’s out-stretched hand in a shimmering black stream, jumping with purple sparks, filling her up with the good, natural energy she had used up long ago, rejuvenating her entire body and mind and healing all her cuts and bruises… and given her a little extra go juice besides. There was a well of life inside her and it was filling fast. She rolled to her feet and started running on the spot just because she could.

  We have done all we can. It is up to you now.

  Couldn’t they have included a plan with their little gift? Katie was about to ask when Dina stepped back – into the soup-thick storm, over-taken by the dark power that pulsed and suddenly the flow of energy from them broke. She had been taken by all these ghosts, all these dead things. Did that mean Dina was dead too? There was no time to mourn. There was a palpable sense of the ancient life leaving all at once. The invisible cover that had been keeping the storm at bay peeled back and started soaking the ground; the wind ripped holes in the air – might have blown her back down if she had felt it. But the dark power was threading out of her skin, thin as hair but sparking like tiny electrical currents grounding through her, casing her in the protection against the forces of nature they had. A body of calm in the maddening storm. In the next instant, there was a tearing at her insides – hard, fast, desperate and Jack misted into being a few metres from her. He lay on the ground, not moving.