“Yeah,” Callum continued in his usual cocky manner. He was a good cop but he had the slightly annoying habit of managing to sound like a grass when ever he was relaying information. Still, it was his gift of gab and wide ears which had caused McCalister to entrust him in the first place.
“Yeah,” said Callum. “You see there was this fire earlier today...”
“Oh, I didn’t hear anything about it.”
McCalister could almost feel the smirk. “Ahhh’ well this is where it gets interesting.It’s been kept from the press, someone from on-high is pulling some strings to make sure the local media didn’t get close enough to get any stories. The word is they found something in the fire.”
Ian sat fully up. “What did they find, Callum?”
“Look, Ian, it’s been pretty difficult finding out anything. The officers first on the scene have been kept away from the rest of us and the Chief’s made it pretty apparent we’re not to ask them about it. I’ll tell you, they looked shaken as hell mate. Not too different to how you looked on... that night. I reckon they might have seen something similar. How about you start telling me just what that might have been, hey?”
McCalister shivered and tried to block out his mind’s eye. Still it wouldn’t fade. It was some length of time before he could speak again. “Look Callum, first of all you wouldn’t believe me mate, secondly it was made pretty clear to me that I shouldn’t go mouthing off about what I saw and lastly,” he laughed and shook his head. “Lastly, just trust me when I say you’re happier never knowing.”
In his computer room at home, Callum frowned and rested his feet up on the desk. “What did you see Ian? What’s going on?”
“Seriously mate, I can’t say. They made it pretty clear that if I started talking about this I wouldn’t be coming back. I mean, I know officially this leave is for me to, I don’t know, recuperate, but in truth I just think they wanted me out of the way.”
Callum nodded, growing more interested by the minute. “Uhhuh’, yeah, I can believe it mate. you see those same suits have been nosing about again. you know, no one even seems to know what branch they’re with, real high and mighty. Even brass won’t tell us who they’re with. Anyhow, they’ve been grilling those coppers ever since they reported in, might still be doing it for all I know!”
Ian opened a new bottle of Gin and poured a large one into a glass. “Do you know what they found Callum?”
“Well, as I say mate there’s a lot of clamps being set down. It’s all Chinese whispers. One of my mates got to speak with one of the lads before the vampires got to em’ though. Said the lass was terrified, talking about monsters or demons or something.” He laughed.
The glass shook in Ian’s hand.
“Daft really, heh? Ian?”
“Look—Callum, let’s just say ‘there are more things in heaven and earth...’ ”
“Jesus, you’re serious about this ain’t you mate? There’s been a lot of talk since you’ve been gone. About that psychological evaluation they had you do. you know a lot of the lads been saying you had some kind of breakdown.”
Ian downed the lukewarm, fiery liquid and let it burn. “Yeah well, that’s not entirely untrue lad.”
“Sweet god, anyone else I’d think they were mad but you, you’re salt of the earth mate. I mean...”
Ian cut him off. “Callum! I’ve got to know, what exactly do you know?”
“Well, it’s all sketchy. The investigation is completely out of our hands, but what I have got is the name of the flat owner and that as far as anyone can tell he wasn’t there when the fire happened.”
Ian was scrabbling for a pen. “Brilliant lad, brilliant!” He found a clipping, something about an alien sighting in Devon and prepared to write on it.
“Okay, the name’s Robert South, no record or anything but his brothers been up for joy-riding a couple of times as a kid and we’ve got the address of his mother, one Edwina South.”
Ian was finding it hard to control himself. All this time of losing his mind, scrabbling for any kind of answers to what he had seen all that time back in that house and now finally something was being given to him. “Fucking brilliant lad!”
“Thanks, okay you got a pen?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure!”
“Okay, the address is 104 Marrow Ave’, up in kesley Grange. Listen McCalister, do what you need to do, but if I was you I’d do it quickly and quietly, you get me? Oh and McCalister if anyone finds you, none of this came from me right?”
“You have my word on that Callum. Thank you from the bottom of my soul, you’ve done grand, lad.”
“Cheers mate, I’ll keep my ears open for any other strange shit that might pop up, oh and be careful.”
“I will, thanks again Callum, I owe you big!”
“Good luck mate!”
Ian nodded and hung up.
He sat staring at the address he now held in his hands. He felt panic rising up in him.
He hadn’t slept well since he’d stood staring into that abyss. His sleep was either shallow or haunted by hellish visions of things he didn’t want to see. It was no exaggeration to say since that evening he’d felt haunted by the knowledge that everything he’d once believed as a lad may actually have been true and that was truly the most terrifying realisation of all. Jesus, what if it was all real? His mind had been locked into a feverish spider-web of things he couldn’t answer and now suddenly it looked like he had somewhere to start and that scared the shit out of him. Till now he’d thought the worst thing was the not-knowing, now in cold terror he realised that what might be worse would be the complete and unflinching truth. Oh Jesus...
He’d seen something not meant for man’s eyes and the thought of delving deeper into the mystery made him feel like a mouse before a cobra, a child in the eyes of God.
As Ian McCalister sat staring at the address the paper began to shake in his hand. There are worse things than not knowing, he told himself. He wasn’t sure he had the courage to take his investigation further but in truth he knew he had no choice. None whatsoever.
AMONGST THE SLEEP
“SWEET FUCKIN’ CHRIST!” Josh sat up, instantly awake. He was aware of a series of things instantly. He was in someone’s bed.
Karen, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, was looking at him startled. “Josh? Are you alright?”
Josh blinked dumbly. “Where am I?”
“My room. My, er house. Hey, are you okay? We’ve been scared shitless!”
Josh’s mind was reeling. He held his hands to the side of his head. His hair was plastered to his head with sweat. “Jesus what a nightmare, there was all these demons and I was burning from ice.”
Karen reached for his hand, he took it and for one second they were looking straight into each other’s eyes. His bewildered, hers wide with concern.
“What did you see?” she asked gently.
He shook his head. “Christ, I can’t remember exactly but it was fucking awful.” He looked ’round the room. Lavender walls, a Moby poster, some flowers painted onto the wall, a poster for the Reading rock festival, a Prodigy poster, lava lamp—in truth, it wasn’t really his flavour.
He realised he was still holding her hand. His palm was wet with perspiration. Karen looked down at their linked hands but neither felt the urge to separate.
Josh was struggling to put together the pieces. Something felt like it had changed but he wasn’t sure what.
“Hey what time is it? How long was I out?”
Karen checked her watch. “It’s five forty-eight in the morning. Oh Josh, thank god you’re alright, we were both scared shitless. How much do you remember?”
“Nothing. I took the pill and then nothing.”
“We were driving home and you suddenly passed out. We couldn’t wake you up no matter how hard we tried. you kept opening your eyes but it was like you couldn’t see us. Like you were in a trance or something.”
Josh nodded. “I think I was.”
Kar
en continued. “Jesus, then you started talking to yourself, having a conversation and sometimes, sometimes it wasn’t even your voice. Oh god those sounds weren’t human!”
He looked at her, baffled. “Sounds?”
Karen couldn’t look at him. “You were making noises—or at least sounds were coming out of you—They weren’t human.”
Josh was frowning. Something felt very wrong. What was it? He was trying to remember his nightmare but couldn’t. His head felt weird, not real. Distant, somehow. It kind of reminded him of the one time he’d done acid and couldn’t feel his jaw or tongue.
He again looked at Karen. “So where’s Rufus? Oh, he’s downstairs, right?”
Karen blinked. “What? yeah how’d you know that?”
Josh eyed her suspiciously. “He’s asleep on the sofa, right?”
“Hmmm...” Karen said. “Something’s changed. What is it?”
Josh was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I feel, I don’t know, awake.”
Karen was silent for a second. “Josh, everything is going to be alright, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know yet, I feel really fucking weird.” He saw her concern for him in her jade green eyes deepen and gave her hand a little squeeze. “I think it will be, though.” He managed a slight smile.
Karen smiled at him and then looked down, her hand still in his. He had never felt so close to her in all his life. Slowly he realised that there was actually some kind of energy radiating between them. Her eyes darted back up and into his. Jesus.
‘There is nothing but air between us!’
Josh looked about the room startled. Karen looked baffled.
“Didn’t you hear that?” he asked her.
“Hear what?”
Josh shook his head. “A scream, something about air between us. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I’d think I was losing my mind, only,” he paused lost for words.
Karen spoke, looking into his eyes meaningfully. “Only it seems real, right?”
He smiled. She’d said it perfectly. “Right,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been hearing voices for months now, I don’t know maybe longer and there’s been all this sick shit in my head. Terrible stuff, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It felt almost like...”
Karen finished his sentence again. “It’s coming from somewhere else.”
They both looked at each other, scared. “Josh, what the hell are we involved in?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. There’s something out there isn’t there? I mean I can feel it everywhere and we’re just part of it, just two real small pieces of it. Can you feel this? I don’t know what, but I feel there’s something terrible coming but I don’t know what.”
“You can if you want,” Karen said softly.
He was startled. “What? Can what?”
“Huh? I didn’t say anything.”
Josh stared at her in quiet disbelief. Had he heard what he thought he had? Jesus, maybe he was just losing his mind, hearing voices. Was he delusional? Still he knew what he had seen. There was no part of him that could accept what he had seen in that flat had existed only in his mind. Rufus had seen it too. Hadn’t he? And Sarah—Sarah!!!
“Shit!”
“What?”
“I just remembered what I saw. I’ve got to get to the hospital!”
DARK PLACE
“THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK, you know?” Rufus said tardily.
Josh said nothing.
Rufus shook his head and kept driving. “It won’t work.”
He mumbled under his breath. His eyes were still bloodshot from having smoked himself to sleep the night before. It was now 6:24 in the morning and he, Josh and Karen were in his car rolling through the misty streets. His reaction to being woken up by a panicky and shaken Josh had been a mixture of grumpiness and then overwhelming joy. Now though, heavy fatigue and stress had meant a return to the former state.
It had taken close to ten minutes for Josh to convince his two friends that Sarah was in genuine danger and even then they had agreed mainly just to calm him down since he had been close to becoming hysterical. When Josh had said he would catch a taxi if he had to, they had reluctantly succumbed.
They stopped at a set of traffic lights and waited in silence. In the back seat Karen was fast asleep, head resting against the window. Even in sleep she looked troubled.
It had been raining steadily throughout the night. Josh looked out of the window at the damp grey city. It was no longer silent. He found himself staring at empty black windows—voices were coming from every single one of them.
It was as it had been before, way back. Nor was it just on occasion and distant as it had been for the past few months. Instead it was constant and loud, very clear and it was everywhere. Everywhere. There would be no peace now, none, and this time Josh knew it was real. Not just an aggravated case of psychosis brought on by excess marijuana smoking, like his shrink had then told him before, but real. Too real.
To say that he was hearing voices wasn’t really right. In truth, he felt them. Felt them inside his mind and then imagined the sound. All he could really do was ignore those voices. A mad cacophony of chattering, oblivious sound so large it was almost silent. Only on occasion would one voice become clear enough for him to clearly hear, as one more powerful voice rose above the others.
He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. All he really knew for certain was that he was scared shitless.
He was also aware that he was still under the influence of the Blue. He couldn’t explain the sensation but it was powerful.
He looked at Rufus. “You know what’s going on, right?”
“Huh?”
“With me? What’s going on with me!” Josh asked, frustrated.
“Man I ain’t got a clue what the fuck you’re on about!”
“Damn it!” Josh resisted the urge to punch the dashboard.
Why the hell was he the only one who’d ever been able to see this? Even now he feared for his sanity but then how could he actually be wrong? It wasn’t just him who had seen what Cally had become. He knew what he was experiencing had to be total reality. There was no way anyone could be delusional enough to imagine what he’d been going through the past few months. Or what he had experienced those years back after recovering from his coma...
Rufus stared at him for a few seconds longer, going through silent questions in his mind and then shrugged and looked back to the traffic light. He’d dealt with way too much weird shit recently to be particularly concerned with Josh’s latest outburst.
Josh looked up just as the light turned to green and with a jolt the car was again rolling.
Rufus watched Josh staring distantly out of the window. “You alright, Josh? you seem distracted, man.” There was a great deal of concern in his voice.
Josh didn’t hear him, lost in the sea of thoughts.
“Josh?”
Josh snapped out of his trance. “Huh?”
Rufus grinned to himself and shook his head knowingly. “Don’t sweat it bro’, nearly there anyhow.”
“Music,” Josh said. “Any chance of some music? Anything will do, and I mean anything!”
Rufus looked at him and then Karen. “I don’t know man, I mean Karen’s asleep.”
“Fuck it!” Josh said, and they both grinned at each other.
“Okay. Cypress Hill alright?”
“Whatever man, jus’ put it on quiet.”
Rufus pressed a few buttons and there was a weird guitar feedback whine followed by probably the most ominous bass-line ever committed to disc. That was followed quickly by some heavy rocksteady drumming fitting to the bass as if it had been welded.
“I love this shit!” Rufus grinned.
In the back Karen stirred but did not wake up and with Rufus banging his head to the beats they drove on.
The Ford drew to a halt outside the lit-up glass lobby of the city’s hospital.
Rufus looked over at Josh �
��So you still doing this?”
Josh nodded. “Ain’t got a choice.”
Rufus frowned. “Man, what exactly did you see? I mean, what does that stuff do?” He paused again thinking of Cally, that distant abomination still frozen in his mind’s eye. “Yo and are you cool now? I mean, ahh’ shit I don’t know what I mean. All I mean is are you going to be, alright?”
Josh smiled. “You mean, am I gonna’ mutate into a monster? I doubt it!”
Rufus laughed slightly. “You know I’m still not cool with this? I mean I think this is some pretty dumb shit you’re pulling. How the fuck are you even gonna’ get her out?”
“Dude, I’ve thought about all of this. Believe me I don’t know. Best way I can explain it is I sense this is the right thing to do. That’s all I’m working on, I think we’re getting caught up in something pretty big!”
“Oh shit man that’s the fuckin’ truth, without doubt! All I’m saying is that I ain’t sure we’re the ones who should be handling it!”
“Man I don’t feel I’ve got a choice. All this crazy shit that’s been happening in the city recently, it all stems from this point. All of it!”
Rufus was silent for a moment, thinking back to the conversation they’d had in the shopping mall. It seemed so long back now.
“Man you really think this is bigger than just, well than just Cally? That there are other... things? Other things out there?”
Josh nodded solemnly. “Rufus, I can feel that there are! Before it was all kind of confusing, just glimpses. Now it’s like the whole thing’s alive, the whole city man! Every particle, every thought, all of it and I can feel them out there, distant, but yeah they’re out there somewhere. I can feel them in me, buzzing, vibrating... Man, it’s fucked up, I can’t explain it!”
Rufus just stared at him. Despite the fact he could no longer deny any of what was happening he couldn’t help but feel he was listening to the ramblings of a mad man. Finally he just nodded.
Dark Side Darker Page 15