Chase noticed movement inside the vehicle Moon had stepped out of. “Mat, look out, behind you,” she screamed as she ran toward him.
Mat spun round with Moon still in his grasp as a severe looking woman with her hair tied up stepped from the vehicle holding a pistol.
“As efficient as ever, Miss Coombs.” Moon grinned. “Now shoot the woman.”
“If you kill her, then your boss is a dead man.” Mat glared at the woman.
“Continue, Miss Coombs. That’s an order.”
Miss Coombs levelled the gun at Chase and Mat screamed as he took the gun from Moon’s head and turned it on Miss Coombs. He pulled the trigger before Miss Coombs could react and a bullet tore into her shoulder, spinning her like a top. This was all the opportunity Moon needed and as Miss Coombs distracted Mat, and the gun was no longer pointed at his head, he elbowed Mat in the stomach, causing him to double up in pain.
“Ever faithful Miss Coombs. Good employees like her are so hard to find these days.”
Mat lay on the ground and Chase ran toward him. She could see he was in pain, his face etched with creases as he fought to catch his breath.
“Chase,” Jane shouted. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
Moon bent down and took the gun out of Mat’s hand. He shook his head and pointed the pistol at Mat. “A valiant attempt, but it was always doomed to failure. Life’s full of winners and losers, and you, my friend, are a loser.”
Chase came to a stop a few feet away from Moon and Mat. She could see that as Mat recovered and got his breath back, he seemed to change. His eyes took on a glassy sheen and his features relaxed into a deadly, emotionless expression.
“Tick, tick, boom, the ticking bomb.” Moon shook his head. “I’m so close to curing the problem. The answer’s on the tip of my tongue, but it’s too late for your friend.” He shook his head again, as though in true remorse.
“How can you be so two-faced saying that you want to find a cure-all to help people, when so many people are having to die. You’re just a hypocrite.”
Moon studied Chase, the gun still pointed at Mat. “I thought that I had explained all that. It’s a necessary evil.”
“So why are you going to kill us?”
“I’m not going to kill you, just them.” He pointed at Chase’s companions. “I can’t leave anything behind which would implicate me. I still have plans to use you, but your friends are too much trouble to keep around. My time here is done and I’ve learned as much as I can. I’ve got the seed of an idea about where I’ve gone wrong, now I just need to plant it and see what grows.”
“You mean another experiment?”
“Life’s an experiment, haven’t you realised that? We’ve mutated since crawling out of the primordial swamp, and we’ll continue to do so. That’s the biggest experiment of all time.”
“And what about the villagers?”
Moon shrugged. “A fire, an explosion, a plane crashing onto the village, a toxic leak, there can be so many ways to explain their deaths. Toxic leak might be best as it would deter people from venturing here.”
“But why?”
Moon pointed at Mat who was now slowly getting to his feet. “Because it’s always best to put a wounded animal out of its misery rather than letting it suffer.” He took a step back, away from Mat.
Chase frowned. Behind her, she heard voices and she turned to see Drake walking along the lane, closely followed by more men. She felt her courage slipping away.
Moon raised his gun and pointed it at Mat. “Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.”
“Noooo.”
Chase heard the scream from behind her and she turned to see Adam levelling his gun at Moon.
“I can’t let you do it, Nigel. Chase is right. The killing has to stop.” Adam pulled the trigger and three shots rang out.
Chase dropped to the ground, felt the heat of the bullets as they hissed past her ear. Looking up, she saw Moon jump for cover; Mat flew back as one of the bullets accidentally hit him. His face momentarily regained its normal aspect, registering shock and surprise.
“Nooo.” Adam charged at Moon, the trigger pressed and more bullets scything the air, ricocheting off the Land Rover Moon ran toward. One of the tyres exploded, bits of rubber flying through the air like bats.
Chase heard more gunfire from her rear. Drake and his men had opened fire, their bullets kicking up little plumes of dust around her prone body. Suddenly a vehicle intervened, creating a barrier between Drake and Chase.
“Come on, sugar, time to scoot.” Jane leaned across and held open the door.
Chase looked up at Jane as one of the Land Rovers windows exploded. Glass diamonds poured over her and Jane ducked and cursed.
Chase picked herself up, dived through the open door and Jane floored the accelerator. The wheels spun, flipping the rear end of the vehicle across the road. In the rear, Ratty and Izzy cowered on the floor.
“We’ve got to help Mat and Adam,” Chase said, ducking as more bullets rained on the vehicle with a sound like hailstones.
“There’s no time.” Jane regained control of the vehicle and levelled it.
“Damn it, I’m not leaving them.” Chase reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, turning it so that they headed back toward Moon’s vehicle. As the Land Rover left the road, the front wheels hit a bump and the wheels left the ground, the vehicle momentarily airborne. They landed with a bang. Chase hit her head on the roof and bright sparks of light flashed before her eyes.
Through the windscreen she could see Moon levelling his gun at them and smiling.
***
Moon smiled and levelled his gun at the vehicle. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.
He tensed his finger on the trigger and held his breath. But then he felt the breath knocked out of him as someone rammed him from behind and he fell in a heap on the ground. Trying to catch his breath, he felt sharp teeth bite into his arm and jagged nails scratching at his face. Twisting his body, he tried to stand, but he was pinned down. He looked up, saw Mat’s savage features glaring back at him.
“Why can’t you just die,” Moon wheezed, trying to manoeuvre the gun around to fire a shot. Behind him he could hear the approaching Land Rover, the wheels coming to a stop beside his head. With a final surge of power, he twisted the gun round and pulled the trigger until it was spent.
Mat jerked like a fish.
***
“Mat.” Chase jumped out of the Land Rover and crouched down next to him, tears rolling down her cheeks. Although still breathing, his breaths were short and ragged.
“Mat, don’t leave me.”
Mat opened his eyes. There was no sign of the change in his face, just pain. “Chase, is ...” he coughed. “Is that you?”
“Yes, hold on, I’ll get you help.”
Mat shook his head. “You’re really here ... It’s not a dream, a nightmare ... I’m ... I’m sorry ...” he coughed up blood, closed his eyes and his chest deflated as his last breath was exhaled.
Chase screamed and shook his shoulders, but it was no good. He was gone.
“Very touching, now come with me,” Moon said.
“Fuck you,” Chase spat.
“Chase, move it.” Jane gunned the engine.
With a final look at Mat, Chase dived for the open door of the Land Rover and Jane floored the accelerator. But she didn’t get all the way in as Moon grabbed her legs, holding her back. She had a tentative grip on the seat, but she could feel her fingers slipping and she screamed. Ratty grabbed her wrists, trying to help her in as the Land Rover moved away, Moon hanging on to her like a bizarre water-skier trailing in her wake.
“Drake, don’t let her get away. I want her alive,” Moon boomed.
Bullets tore into the vehicle and Chase managed to free one of her legs. With a vindictive look back at Moon, she kicked him hard in the face, feeling the satisfying crunch of his nose as her heel connected. Moon let go immediately, fallin
g to the ground with his hands covering his face as he rolled through the grass.
“Adam ...” Chase pulled herself into a sitting position and looked through the shattered rear window. She could just see him firing back at Drake and his men, but it was no good. He was outnumbered and outclassed. Bullets tore into him, lethal kisses of death that took his life. As he pirouetted in the air, Chase thought she saw him smile, and she knew that he had found his redemption.
As Jane sped away from the scene, Chase felt empty. She could hear gunfire from their rear, but they were now too far away for it to be effective. She clutched at her belly as the fog drifted around the vehicle.
“I can’t see very well.” Jane leaned forward and peered through the windscreen.
“Try these.” Ratty passed her a pair of funny looking goggles from the back seat. Chase dimly remembered that she had seen someone wearing them when Adam and she were in the back of the truck.
Jane slipped them on and fiddled with them for a moment before she smiled. “These are fantastic.” She grabbed Chase’s knee and gave it an encouraging squeeze.
Chase closed her eyes. She felt exhausted. But she didn’t think she would ever be able to sleep again.
It took about twenty minutes of cautious driving before they came out of the fog. There was a sentry post up ahead, but it was unmanned. Chase twisted in her seat, watching the mist close like curtains in their wake. She had expected to see vehicles following them, but as Moon’s Land Rover had an exploded tyre and any other vehicles were most likely too far away, nothing appeared.
Apart from Ratty who gave directions to civilisation and the nearest police station, none of them spoke much during the flight to freedom. It was as though they were all trying to come to terms with what had happened. Chase was certainly trying, although it all seemed too unreal, too unbelievable. She had taken a roller coaster ride into madness and horror, but when would it end? Her stomach felt as though she was still on the vertiginous descent and she felt sick.
She wound down the window, leaned her head out, feeling a rush of cold air that left her breathless. The sun peeked over the horizon, an orange ball of flame that seemed to set the sky on fire. To all intents and purposes, it looked like the end of the world.
CHAPTER 34
Four months later.
The bedsit felt cold. Chase sat wrapped in a blanket, shivering. Since escaping from Paradise, she had always felt cold, mainly due to the nightmares that came each night. Partly due to wondering whether it had all been real. She often wondered whether she was going mad. They had tried hard enough to convince her that she was.
After they had driven out of the fog, Ratty had directed them to the nearest police station where they had tried to persuade a bemused desk sergeant of their ordeal. He’d smiled patiently at them while they told their story, then they had to repeat it again in an interview room, separately.
It was an infuriating experience. Chase had tried to make the police drive her back to the village straight away so that she could show them what was going on, but they were only interested in why Chase and Jane were in the company of two children reported as missing. She had tried to explain that they weren’t missing, that they’d been kidnapped. That only made things worse as the police then wanted to know why Chase had kidnapped them. This line of questioning seemed to go on for hours. And when it did stop, they placed her in a holding cell until the next day. She had banged on the door for a while, but a drunk in the next cell was having a seizure and they told her to shut up and stop making a racket while they attended to more serious matters. Chase was left feeling humiliated and angry.
After Jane, Ratty and Izzy corroborated her story, the police drove them back to the village. When they got close, thin wisps of fog drifted over the landscape, but there was no thick bank of fog. As they drove down the lane, they passed an area of dead grass. Chase guessed it was where the buildings should have been and they stopped the car and got out to look. But apart from large square areas of dead foliage and some holes where posts might have been, there was nothing to suggest buildings had been there. The four of them kept to their story and the police drove on with little enthusiasm.
When Paradise came in sight, Chase was struck by how beautiful it still looked. Only now she knew what horror lurked beneath the facade, the beauty was tainted, like biting into an apple to find it rotten inside.
They drove into the village and parked up outside the village shop. In the distance, the church bell was ringing and pigeons raced around the spire.
The bell jangled as the entered the shop and a slightly balding, middle-aged man appeared from out back.
“Can I help you?” He stared surprised and alarmed at the police cramming the aisles.
The first thing Chase noticed was the tins of food. They were all brand name produce. There were none of the white labelled tins on the shelves.
“Who are you?” Chase asked.
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” the police officer that had driven her said.
“Where’s Ms Woods,” Chase continued, ignoring the policeman.
“Ms who?” The man behind the counter shook his head.
“The owner, Ms Woods.”
The man laughed. “I’m afraid you must have made a mistake. I’m the owner. Bernard Jones the name.” He shook his head, looking bemused, and turned to the door to the back room. “Kath, Kath love, come here and listen to this will you.”
After a moment, a plain looking woman Bernard introduced as his wife, appeared in the shop, wiping her hands on an apron, her face slightly flushed. She listened to the story wearing a bemused grin like her husband.
Chase looked at Jane, Ratty and Izzy and they all tried to protest, claiming that they were telling the truth. But the police ushered them out of the shop, apologising to the owner for wasting his time.
It was the same everywhere they went. The residents of Paradise had been replaced and they all refuted the story Chase and her companions told. An elderly couple that nodded sympathetically and offered a panacea of tea to the weary policemen now inhabited High Top Cottage.
In a final last-ditch effort to find something to corroborate their story, Chase took them to the church. Inside she got quite a shock when she saw a vicar kneeling before the altar. From behind he looked just like the vicar who had been killed – she realised then that she hadn’t even known his name – but when he turned, it wasn’t him at all. He smiled and nodded in all the right places, produced documents to show how long he’d been there and even offered to give Chase and her companions’ spiritual guidance.
As they were about to walk out of the church, the vicar said, “Faith can move mountains, have faith in the Lord.” As an aside to Chase he whispered, “But Moon can move more.”
She knew that it was useless arguing further. Moon had told her that the people involved in the experiment were powerful, but only now did she begin to realise just how powerful. They had no proof – Drake had taken Ratty’s disc, and they had nothing else.
They kept to the story about Ratty’s granddad, even finding the grave. (It was the first Ratty knew of his death, and he was naturally distressed). But it didn’t prove anything. He was old. Death was inevitable and they weren’t about to exhume him to check for foul play. Chase never did find out, but she wondered whether Albert Rathbone had been killed just so that she could be moved into the village. It was one of many questions that went unanswered.
Chase and the others were tested for psychiatric disorders, and when, with the exception of the Paradise story, they were found to be rational and well adjusted, they were released.
The psychiatrists put the episode down to a form of mass hysteria; Ratty and Izzy were released back into the custody of their respective parents and Chase and Jane were released pending a court hearing on charges of abduction and wasting police time.
When Chase finally left the village and returned to her former home, she was in for another shock as there was a fam
ily living in it. They had the necessary deeds to prove their ownership, but Chase caused so much of a fuss that the police were called and she was arrested again.
She had a court order served on her, disallowing her from going within two miles of her previous house, so for a while she moved in with Jane. But after Paradise, their friendship felt strained. They had been through too much, and instead of drawing them closer, it pushed them apart and they withdrew into their own little worlds of pain. Also, Jane’s partner, Gina had not taken to Chase staying. She wanted Jane all to herself so she could help her recuperate, and Chase was the cuckoo in the nest that had taken her away in the first place.
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