The Anomaly (Scarrett & Kramer Book 2)

by Neil Carstairs

  The Hawk pilot told him Lossiemouth was ahead and Ben strained to see past the helmet of the Hawk’s driver. He couldn’t see much, just a wide tarmac runway, white paint marks and a myriad of landing lights guiding them in. He kept quiet, letting the pilot concentrate on getting them down safely. Ben closed his eyes. On commercial flights, he could look away from the windows as the ground reached up to reclaim them. In the backseat of the Hawk, closing his eyes was all he could he do to avoid seeing the airfield close in on them.

  “Welcome to Scotland,” the pilot said as they touched down. “First visit?”

  “No,” Ben said as the rapid deceleration of the aircraft pushed him into his restraints. “Second.”

  As the Hawk began to turn from the runway Ben saw an RAF Land Rover drive in front of them, bright orange ‘Follow Me’ lights flashing on its roof.

  “Looks like you are a VIP,” the pilot said. “There’s a Lynx already warming up for you.”

  “I’ve got friends in low places,” Ben said.

  The Hawk came to a halt, and ground crew rolled a mobile staircase beside the cockpit. Ben waited for the crewman to come alongside and release him.

  “Hop out, sir, and the Landy will take you over to the Lynx.”

  The crewman turned out to be female. She helped Ben lever himself out of the cockpit and down the stairway. His legs shook as he touched the concrete of the airfield apron. Ben gave the crew lady his best nervous smile and said, “Now I know how the Pope feels.”

  She laughed and led him across the Land Rover. Once inside, Ben asked if he had time to make a call. The driver nodded as he drove at a sedate ten-miles-an-hour towards the Lynx helicopter. Ben found McGrath’s number on his phone and called it.

  “Hello?” The now familiar Scottish accent came out of the phone.

  “John, it’s Ben. I should be with you soon. I don’t know if anyone has let you know, but I’ll be flying in on a helicopter from Lossiemouth air force base.”

  “I’m impressed,” McGrath said. “And no, I didn’t know.”

  “Well, if these guys haven’t got anywhere planned to put me down where do you suggest?”

  “I guess the local school’s playing field. I’ll drive up now and meet you.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let them know.”

  By the time Ben finished the call, the Land Rover had halted near the Lynx. Ben exited the vehicle with a ‘thank you’ to the driver and sighed as he looked at the helicopter. Another form of transport that did little for him. At least the trip would be short. Maybe he’d send the crew back and get McGrath to drive him to Lossiemouth when his visit was done.

  A crewman met him halfway and shook his hand. Ben told him about landing at the school as he strapped into a bench seat. Then he closed his eyes again as the engines started and the rotor blades began to turn. He did open them a couple of times. Once to see how low they were flying and the second time as the Lynx flared for landing on the grass soccer pitch. McGrath waited next to his police car with a horde of kids around him. The crewman told Ben they would let the schoolchildren look around the helicopter while they waited for him. It would be good for public relations. Ben trotted over to McGrath as two teachers led the kids in the opposite direction.

  “I’m glad you got here so quickly,” the policeman said. “Old Davey isn’t the best house guest I’ve ever had.”

  “Has he said anything else?”

  “Nothing. It’s like he knows you’re coming.”

  The drive from the school to McGrath’s police house didn’t take long. McGrath told Ben that his girlfriend was on the point of moving out.

  “It’s the smell,” he said. “I’m gonna have to get the whole place fumigated and even then I don’t know if she’ll want to stay knowing who’s been there.”

  “So you won’t be interested in a job offer then?” Ben asked as McGrath pulled up in front of a white-painted, single-storey building.

  With the engine off McGrath stared at Ben and said, “With your lot?”

  “Yeah. I put a good word in for you. We haven’t got anyone up in this area so apart from induction and training, you’d still be based up here.”

  “And dealing with dead people?”

  “Maybe. Sometimes paranormal or supernatural events.”

  “Like vampires?”

  “Not met any of them, yet,” Ben said. “Only demons.”

  McGrath laughed. “Only?”

  “Amongst other things.”

  “I’ll think about it,” McGrath said.

  Ben left the car. McGrath unlocked the front door and stepped back. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’ll wait in the car and fill in some forms.”

  “Which room is he in?”

  “Second door on the left. It’s the sitting room and looks out the back towards the sea. That’s the way he came from. I saw him walking up when I was having my breakfast.”

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Ben said.

  “Make sure he goes and stays gone.”

  Ben stepped into a narrow hallway and smelt Old Davey. Brine and death hung on the air. Closing the door behind him, Ben walked past framed photographs of McGrath in his army days. At the door to the sitting room, he took out his phone and started the voice-recorder app. He kept the phone out as he walked into the room. Old Davey sat as still as a statue. Ben felt a sense of deja-vu. He sat in an armchair across from the old man and waited.

  Old Davey took his time. As before, he didn’t breathe. Ben rested his phone on the arm of the chair. Davey looked a little worse than last time they’d met. His flesh seemed to leak more liquid. Pale streams ran down his neck and disappeared inside the waterproofs he wore. Ben rested back into the armchair. He took a look out of the window and saw the view of the sea that McGrath had mentioned. Not bad. Ben could imagine a place like this being worth a fortune if it wasn’t so remote, cold and wet. His attention returned to Davey as the old man shifted on the sofa.

  “You came.” Davey’s voice but not Davey speaking. Someone or something else that twisted the vocal chords into a close resemblance of a human voice.

  “Yeah,” Ben sat forward. “I understand you wanted to see me.”

  “Morrigan,” Davey said. “Beware.”

  Ben glanced at his phone, hoping the recorder would pick this up.

  “Beware Morrigan?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

  Davey stood, his waterproofs creaking with the sudden movement. Ben rose too, not wanting Davey to leave without some explanation. “I need more,” he said. “What’s Morrigan?”

  A hand came out to rest on Ben’s shoulder. He felt the chill touch run through his flesh. Before he could move, Ben saw Old Davey lean forward. Now the old man did breathe, an exhalation that swept across Ben’s face. He tasted death and as Davey came closer, found he couldn’t move away from the eyes that began to turn an ugly shade of yellow.

  The sitting room vanished. They stood on a beach, a mix of shingle and sand stained dark by a receding tide. A mist surrounded them. It moved like a living thing. One moment it was thin enough for Ben to see dunes at the top of the beach, the next it thickened and touched him like a gossamer curtain. He heard shouting, screaming and the sound of battle. The clash of swords and the hideous wet smack of blades hitting flesh. People were dying and Ben could see none of this because the mist closed around him like a blanket.

  Old Davey began walking and Ben followed him. Shadowed figures struggled in the surf where beach met sea. A dozen long boats were drawn up on the sand. They were burning. The pungent smoke mixed with the mist and caught in Ben’s throat. The combat looked close to being over. Forty or more bodies lay on the beach. Blood ran from wounds and mixed with the breaking waves, forming a pink foam. The defeated survivors were fleeing, and as they ran, they discarded swords and shields. Ben watched the men run until they disappeared from view. The mist seemed to chase them into the dunes.

  The victors cheered. Ben took a step back. They were shaped like men
but there the similarity ended. Some wore clothing, others fur and hair that grew naturally upon their skin. Their flesh varied in colour from white to crimson and their height from a metre to over two metres tall. An army of goblins, sprites and imps. Old Davey came to his side as the boats burned and the invaders gathered the weapons of the fallen.

  “Beware,” the old man said.

  Another figure emerged from the mist and smoke. A woman, her hair dark and her skin pale. She looked at him, smiled, and he saw the beauty in her eyes.

  And the evil.

  Old Davey reached out and laid his hand upon Ben’s shoulder.

  “Morrigan,” he said.

  And at that moment, they were back in the sitting room of McGrath’s police house.

  The old man moved away from Ben, walking to the French windows. He opened the door and stepped outside. Ben went with him, down the garden to the low wall that formed the boundary of the property. Old Davey didn’t slow. He strode over ankle length rough grass towards the rocky shoreline. Ben stumbled, still seeing in his mind’s eye the woman on the beach. He and Davey went down to the sea together like father and son. Ben stopped where the grass gave way to a strip of sand. Old Davey continued out over the seaweed-covered rocks to the sea.

  Ben knew what would happen next. Old Davey didn’t hesitate as he stepped into the water. It rose up to his waist, and the old man sank beneath the surface without looking back. Ben waited as the waves broke over something large and then the figure rose, a huge, bloated shape of man and seal. He hung there, water cascading from his flesh, as if to say farewell, and then Old Davey, or whatever he had become, vanished beneath the waves leaving Ben at the shoreline with his memory of a beautiful woman and a warning.

  Chapter Five

  Six hours had passed since the blast, and Geordie still found himself picking fragments of stone from his skin. He knew he’d have a couple more scars to add to his collection but figured that right now, he looked better than Kramer did. She sat a few metres away, resting on a bank made of rock and dust and using part of her blouse to clean dried blood from her face. There was a livid bruise on her forehead, a nicely forming black-eye and a couple of deep cuts that still leaked thin trails of blood. Geordie didn’t mind getting battered around a bit; he figured some scars would make him more attractive to the ladies. He knew Kramer wouldn’t think the same. She looked like she’d gone twelve rounds with Wladimir Klitschko.

  As she wiped the hem of her blouse on the rock, Geordie asked, “Got an answer yet?”

  She gave him a baleful glare. “No. Should I?”

  “Well, you’re the officer. I’m just a sergeant.”

  “I seem to recall saying I was pretty much out of the army.”

  “Okay,” Geordie nodded. “But doesn’t that mean you now work for an intelligence agency? With the emphasis on intelligence.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t have an answer. Maybe a couple of guesses but that’s about it.”

  “So guess away.”

  She sighed and looked at a bruise on her arm. “We know there’s an anomaly back in the village. We know we ran into some undead and a giant, a jotunn, Scarrett called it. Those things must have come from somewhere. I think maybe we chased the jotunn and he hid inside the engine house. I think he went back to wherever he came from which set up a shockwave that blew the building apart. We got lucky.”

  “We did?” Geordie didn’t feel lucky. His ribs were bruised, and his left shin had an inch-long gash in it. Not to mention the ache in the side of his head.

  “Sure. The Anomaly is a link to some parallel world. You’ve heard of the multiverse theory?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you have. Multiple universes existing alongside each other. I think we were caught in the shockwave of an expanding anomaly. We’re no longer in our universe or on our Earth. We are somewhere else. Another version of Earth.”

  “Pity we didn’t end up here before all that bloody stonework hit us.”

  “Yeah.” Kramer touched the lump growing on her brow. “Do I look like shit?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Fuck.” Kramer turned away, and Geordie thought he might have caught the glint of a tear in her eye.

  “At least your boyfriend isn’t here to see what you look like.” Geordie hoped he sounded sympathetic.

  Her shoulders shook with something close to a laugh. “I can imagine his sympathy oozing from every pore.”

  “He’d have come out of this untouched,” Geordie said.

  “Too right. I’d have to give him a black-eye to make up for it,” Kramer said with a bit more brightness in her voice.

  “That’s more like it,” Geordie stood and stretched his aching back. “Ready to move out?”

  “Yeah.”

  As soon as the dust settled, they had known they were in a different world. The Land Rover had vanished. The dry stone wall around the field no longer existed. Hell, the field no longer existed. They sat in what appeared to be the same world they had seen inside the Anomaly. Dried earth and dust. It took a while to recover from the blast but the eventual decision to move came easily. Geordie pointed in the direction of the village, or his best estimate without working GPS on their smartphones or the compass that had been in the now missing Land Rover.

  Geordie led the way. At least they were still armed, the MP5As they carried checked for damage. But problems would soon mount. Food would be first. Followed by somewhere to shelter when night fell. Neither of them had seen any trace of water. No water, no life. Nothing to eat or forage. And if this place was like some other deserts that Geordie had found himself in during his years in the army, it would get cold tonight. And they had no shelter. He wondered what Kramer would think of sharing body warmth. Not a great deal, he imagined. Geordie glanced up at the sun. He could only hope that his estimate of around 4 p.m. was correct. Of course, if this had been back in the real world it would be starting to get dark now.

  “Could this other Earth be in spring?” he asked. “Like everything is opposite?”

  “Maybe,” Kramer said from behind him. “We’d have to be here a while before we could know for certain.”

  “We’re not planning on an extended stay?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Geordie smiled. He wanted Kramer upbeat. Sometimes upbeat was just focussing on getting out of a hole. And this was one big hole they were in. He had no idea if they could get back. But at least they weren’t dead. Which made him think. “Could this be heaven?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Heaven. Like we died back there and are now wandering around in the afterlife trying to find the pearly gates.”

  “Are you always this cheerful?” she asked.

  “I have my moments.”

  “Well, I was kind of hoping that all this pain I’m in means I’m alive. If this is dead, then I really will not be happy. Not to mention this place looks too much like Hell.”

  “True.” Geordie nodded as if Kramer had just said something philosophical.

  Geordie wanted to reach the village before dark. Or, he corrected himself, the area he hoped the village should be. He’d explained to Kramer that if humans inhabited this area, they’d most likely have a settlement in the same place. The shape of the coastline provided shelter, and anyone setting up home would have that at the top of their list. He hoped.

  He glanced back. Kramer walked with her head down. She limped, favouring her right leg. A gap had opened up between them. Geordie slowed his pace to let her catch up. The land rose in front of them and the broken surface he walked on shifted with each step, making his thighs ache.

  They reached the crest at about the same time Geordie started to think about food. Neither of them had anything on them, not even a half-eaten bar of chocolate. As the land opened up in front of them, Geordie saw the horizon shimmer like the surface of a lake. Not good. He figured maybe two or three miles to the sea. He thought the hill on his right had been som
ewhere near the house where they’d run into the undead. At least it gave him a decent idea about how long it would be before they reached the coast.

  “Geordie?” Kramer asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you hear something?”

  Geordie concentrated. Yes, he heard a sound. He turned a full circle, trying to get some direction on the source. It seemed to resonate on the air, and all Geordie could do was stare out from their vantage point as a cloud of dust rose up like a curtain and swept towards them. Kramer came alongside him. Somewhere in the maelstrom, he thought he saw figures moving.

  “We can’t outrun that,” Kramer said.

  “There’s nowhere to go anyway.”

  Kramer sighed. “I noticed.”

  Geordie switched his gun from safe to burst fire. “Stay close,” he said. “If we lose sight of each other do not fire. No point in shooting the wrong person.”

  Geordie spat onto the dry ground as the dust swirled closer. He saw the shapes again. Huge silhouettes that seemed to form out of the particles and boasted eyes that burned a crimson red. Kramer whispered a prayer as the dust cloud enclosed them.

  ***

  Kramer wanted to stay next to Geordie but as the storm engulfed them a gust of wind made her stagger back, and in an instant she lost sight of the sergeant. Dust and grit filled her eyes and her mouth. She turned, sheltering her face from the maelstrom. All around her the world swirled like a kaleidoscope. And in the movement, she saw the shapes again. Monsters that grew out of nothing and disappeared as swiftly. The wind pushed her towards them, and with each step she heard them snarl and snap with jaws made of stone. And then the dust settled as she stumbled into the eye of the storm.

  A beast waited for her.

  Its flesh rippled as if dust had become liquid. Claws extended, formed from shards of rock and flint. It breathed a welcome that filled the air with powder. Kramer brought her gun up and fired. Three rounds blew the creature apart, dissolving it into an angry cloud that expanded and swept onto her. Kramer turned and ran into a wall of noise and movement. The storm captured her once more, flaying at her skin. She staggered as the weight of the world pressed upon her, driving her down to the ground. The impact drove the last of the air from her lungs. Pain flared in her ribs, a lightning strike that curled her into a ball as sand and dust swirled like a blizzard.