Cold Skies: A Psychological Thriller

by Zoe Drake

  “Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

  Which is my sin though it were done before?

  Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run,

  And do run still, though still I do deplore?”

  Gareth cautiously looked around him, at the strangers lining the pews. Who were these people? Why had they come? Unlike him, they hadn’t stumbled in by accident. They had a purpose, a reason to be here.

  What was his reason?

  Two latecomers – a man and a woman – moved slowly across the flagstones past Gareth, and edged into a pew two rows in front of him. Even though they were little more than silhouettes, Gareth noticed the cane that the woman held, and the gentle but practiced way the man helped her to her seat. Blind, he thought. She’s blind. But she can hear, and she can feel.

  The chapel was filled with the ethereal voices of the choir and the booming tones of the organ, and when silence had once more descended, another scholar rose for the next reading.

  “At the round earth’s imagined corner, blow

  Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise,

  From death, you numberless infinities

  Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go!”

  Gareth was finding it difficult to concentrate on the words; they twisted and turned around him like the smoke from the candles filling the Chapel. Moisture stung his eyes; he raised a hand, to wipe his face, and saw afterward there were tears upon his fingers.

  He lowered his hand, and realized that he was no longer alone. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the girl sitting in the next seat of the pew, her face turned to him and her blond hair glowing in the candlelight.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Manning,” she said. Although Gareth heard her clear as day, nobody else in the Chapel seemed to notice or react to her voice. “If you feel like crying, it’s good to cry. It’ll make you feel better.”

  The voice of the vast pipe organ spoke again, and the chapel resonated like a bell. The girl opened her mouth and began to sing with the choir, a clear high note that rang in his ears, then inside his very skull.

  Gareth felt the wood of the pews and the stone tiles of the floor vibrate, and like a tuning fork, his body vibrated with it. Deep overtones saturated the chapel, spreading out from it like ripples through a pond, and he suddenly felt that the organ was also producing sounds that could not be heard, sounds at frequencies too high for human beings.

  The stained glass windows trembled before his eyes. All the angels, saints and disciples who stood frozen in the windowpanes, as stark as X-rays – all of them were set free. They launched themselves into the smoky air, shimmering in the spectrum created by the oxides in the glass. They whirled above the altar, a silent storm of wings painted in gold, cobalt and silver. All Gareth could do was stare in awe, with the girl beside him for comfort, as he heard another of the speakers begin to recite:

  Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

  Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

  For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

  Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Friday, February 9th

  When Gareth awoke, it was dark once more.

  The B&B room was overheated and muggy, and there was a painful throbbing in his head. Sluggishly, he looked at the watch he still wore, and blinked until the numbers made some sort of sense. Nine thirty-five. In the evening. Oh God.

  It had been a fitful, disturbed sleep, and that was all he could remember of it. The evening ahead revealed itself to his befuddled brain. A shower. Another pub dinner. And, believe it or not, another bloody Skywatch.

  He’d gone to sleep with confused, resentful images of Bennings, Littlewood, Caroline, Jenny, his Mum and Dad, in his mind, and they all returned to assault him now his brief rest was over. He remembered how he argued with Bennings over taking another Skywatch that evening. “We need a break,” Gareth had said. “We need some time to have a good think about what’s happened so far.”

  “One more night,” Bennings had urged. “If we see the lights again, we’ll know that something extraordinary is going on.”

  “Yes, but where’s it going to end?” Gareth had countered with. “You guys might go for another night after that. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this forever.”

  In the end, Bennings had relented and said, “Okay, look. If you want to take some time off, you deserve it. Things have been pretty crazy this week and yes, maybe we need a breather. I’ll speak to Brian – he says he’s game for another night, but you don’t have to be there if you don’t want to be.”

  “I’ll let you know,” Gareth said, calming down and meeting Bennings halfway. “I’ll see how I feel later on.”

  Well, later on was already here, and Gareth could not say that he was filled with optimism.

  He sat up in bed, switching on the bedside lamp. Peeling off his T-shirt to get rid of the sweat around his armpits, he fumbled for the remote control. With a touch of his thumb, the room was filled with sound, color, and Eastenders.

  He picked up his cell phone and toyed with it for a moment, about to call Caroline’s number… and stopped. He didn’t feel like speaking to her. Didn’t feel like doing much of anything.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Maybe something was wrong – not with him, but with this business. The initial euphoria of seeing the unknown lights had worn off, being replaced with… something that made him profoundly uneasy.

  Gareth had never been a stickler for routine; he liked to be spontaneous, he loved novelty, and that was why he chose to go self-employed. However, he also liked to know where he stood. This week, there’d been too many upsets. People – and more importantly, things – were not behaving in the way they were supposed to. He’d come here to take some shots and get paid for it and then go home; not to get involved in a mystery – or, as it was likely to turn out now – a controversy.

  Okay, I’ve seen something. That much is true.

  He couldn’t deny it. Other people had seen it too, so it wasn’t his imagination. But they still couldn’t prove anything. Thousands of people around the world have seen UFOs, Bennings had said. So he was only another guy saying, “I’ve seen the saucers,” and the rest of the world will say, “Mate – what drugs are you on?” There were the photos and the videos they’d taken, but everyone was going to say they were fakes. Gareth knew how easy it was to fake things like that. Depressing, but true. Even if the objects he’d seen looked the same as those in the prints that had been sent to him.

  The prints…

  He got off the bed, picked up the briefcase and opened it. He reached into the pocket at the back and his fingers fumbled at… nothing. He stared for a few seconds at the place where the photographs weren’t.

  Switching on the main light, he opened the zipper on his camera bag, and began to search through the different pouches concealed within it.

  Still nothing.

  He went back to the briefcase, convinced that the last time he’d handled them had been when he’d put them back in there. Then he started to search every item of furniture in the room, beginning with the drawers of the bedside table.

  He searched in a very methodical way, looking in places where he knew they couldn’t possibly be, often returning to places he’d examined shortly before. As he searched, he swore under his breath, rhythmically and repetitively. A home movie played, rewound and replayed itself in his head; a movie of his hands putting the slim manila envelope away in a safe place.

  At length, he sat on the bed, defeated. He picked up his mobile phone and jabbed out a number, praying that Bennings had woken up by now.

  “Hello? Could you see if Dr. Bennings is in, please? Thank you.”

  A few seconds later, a hoarse voice answered.

  “Doug, did I wake you up? Oh, really? Good. Listen, you’re not going to believe this, but do you reme
mber those photos I told you about? The ones of the strange lights over the churches? Well, they’re not here anymore. Listen, I… er… I didn’t give them to you for safekeeping, did I? No, I thought I didn’t. What? I told you, I don’t know where they are. I thought I put them back in my briefcase last night, but they’re not there now. Christ, maybe there really was a burglar in here last night. Can you check the films you’ve got, to make sure everything’s all right? Thanks.”

  He waited for Bennings to finish checking, and for a long moment, he cast a glare of resentment around the room, taking in every nook and cranny he could.

  “Hello? It’s all there? Well, that’s something. Listen, what are you doing now? Do you fancy a bite to eat? I still don’t know about the Skywatch tonight, but I could murder a beer. I’ll come over to your hotel, and then we can go somewhere within walking distance. Right. Got you. See you soon.”

  After a swift shower, a wide-awake Gareth hopped down the stairs, and as an afterthought stopped at reception to ring the bell. Almost immediately, Mrs. Chapman stepped into the lobby.

  “Oh hello, Mr. Manning! I do hope what happened this morning didn’t disturb you…”

  “No, no, not at all. Did the police say if anything was taken?”

  “I don’t think there was. It was an attempted burglary, they said. Mr. Beamiss said he woke up in the middle of the night, and he saw someone outside his window… looking in.”

  “Right. I see.” Gareth frowned. “I thought all the guest rooms were on the second floor?”

  “Yes, they are.” Mrs. Chapman chewed her lip, as if she were thinking hard over something. “They said it must have been someone trying to get in through the window, thinking the room was empty.”

  “Someone who climbed up the wall? Like on a ladder?”

  Mrs. Chapman closed her eyes and shrugged, but the gesture was more like shivering.

  “So nothing was taken,” Gareth said. “Right. Good. I’ll be off out, I’ve got some business to take care of.”

  “Take care, Mr. Manning.”

  “You too, Mrs. Chapman. There’s some funny people about!”

  Outside, it was beginning to rain again, with the wind throwing hard spitballs at every exposed area on Gareth’s body. Once inside the car, he flicked on the heater, rubbing himself under the flow of warm air, even though he’d only been in the cold for seconds. The deep red glow of the dashboard before him gave out a warm, comforting light; the controls, the radio, the CD player. He switched on the radio and a track he recognized as the Lighthouse Family filled the car’s interior. Radio One; the Mark Radcliffe Sessions.

  After easing out of the car park, he headed out of Coveney, aiming for the Witcham road.

  In an obscure way, he felt guilty about the attempted burglary. It was if he had caused it somehow, by bringing ‘weirdoes’ into the area. Perhaps Mrs. Chapman is wondering what I’m mixed up in, he thought.

  Perhaps I am, too.

  Soon he was cruising through the flat and hollow darkness once more. The sky was an inverted bowl of starlight, while the earth beneath it stretched away into acres of black and featureless peat, with faint wisps of mist arising from the dykes and ditches.

  The headlights feebly illuminated the fork in the road. The right side led to Witcham, the other to the A142. Gareth indicated right. The car slowed as it approached the junction–

  And then everything stopped, and all the lights in the car winked out.

  Gareth sat in the dark, listening to the crushing silence. His first reaction was to burst out laughing.

  It was so sudden. One second he’d been in control, ready to make the turning – and the next, the engine was dead in the water. The radio, the headlights, the dashboard lights – all were extinguished.

  He reached out and twisted the key in the ignition, but all he felt and heard was a dry clicking. No power. No response.

  This is supposed to be one of the best cars on the market!

  He kept trying the motor, but the more he thought about it, ‘dead in the water’ was exactly how he felt. Floating on a sea of darkness, with the sky, the fields, and the icy water in the ditch beside the road all merging into one primeval mass. The only sound was the wind stirring the beds of marsh reeds outside, whipping them into a mockery of intelligent motion.

  He turned his head to see if any cars were coming up behind him; no, the road was clear, thank God. He turned back to grasp the steering wheel–

  What was that?

  Something bright had streaked across his line of vision as he glanced through the windscreen – but it had already disappeared.

  Lantern Men. The phrase came, unbidden, into his mind, and he wished it hadn’t.

  He paused with his hand on the ignition, scanning the dim, lonely expanse of horizon. It must have been the headlights of another car, he thought – coming towards him?

  “At least it wasn’t another of those–”

  Light.

  Blinding, burning light.

  If The Bomb were dropped, the first few seconds might have looked like this. The car’s interior was bleached white by the sudden flare. Gareth threw up his hands to protect his eyes, but the after-images were already dancing through his head. Everything dark and in shadow had dissolved, been purged away, like an image fading in too much developing fluid.

  The light flicked out as suddenly as it had began, and all was dark again, leaving Gareth blinking his eyes in pain.

  Gareth’s shocked yell was drowned out by a howling from the car stereo. A harsh roar of static. A blizzard of white noise, at deafening volume.

  His hand came down on the radio switch to turn it off, but all he got was a sharp sting of static. He turned the knob frantically, but all stations, all wavelengths, were drowned out by the static scream.

  Then, through the storm of white noise, came the sound of the engine.

  Whiplash claimed Gareth’s neck as the car kangaroo-leaped forward. Instinct kicked in; his hands grabbed the wheel, his feet stomped on the brake.

  This is my car. I’m in control. The car will do what I make it do.

  But the VW jerked again as it rammed into an invisible barrier, like a clockwork toy hitting a child’s outstretched hand. Gareth viciously changed gear and put his foot down on the accelerator – and the car was moving again, but too fast, the edge of the road and the dyke was somewhere in front of him.

  Move this thing around–

  Then the car began to turn, but not in the way his hands were steering. He felt the wheel buck against his grip. The tires were locking into a skid.

  Leaving him as helpless as a crash dummy, the rear of the car was sliding around to overtake the front. Gareth saw his blurred view of the Fens tilt and tremble before him, and then with a loud bang, he was treated to a grand view of the stars as the back of the car suddenly dipped into the ditch, jerking his seat upwards.

  “Oh no! No, no, no, no!”

  It didn’t stop. The car shook, there was a noise like metal hinges being ripped apart, and the inside of the car began to rotate. Gareth threw his weight to the right but it was too late, his chest was pushed against the seatbelt holding him as the car first slid over onto its side into the ditch, and then – with a speed that slammed the breath out of him – the car flipped over and downwards with an almighty splash of water, trapping him upside down in the driver’s seat.

  The radio still screamed, and so did Gareth, hung upside-down and sagging in the belt that pressed against his chest and neck. The metal of the car groaned against the forces that tortured it. Gareth’s head was pressed against the roof at a dangerous angle; he felt his bulk beginning to strangle him. He pressed both hands against the yielding surface and tried to push himself up.

  The car’s bodywork shuddered and groaned; it must have hit the silt at the bottom of the dyke.

  The window to his left gave a sharp chiming sound, and instantly glass shards exploded into the side of his face
.

  A stinking, freezing coldness began to flood the interior. The rank-smelling water rushed around his head, trickling through his hair and splashing into his eyes. Think. Think. The window’s open, the water’s coming in, and the ditch is almost two meters deep. I have to get out.

  But the seatbelt–

  He began to sob, making incoherent noises as he hung upside-down like something stuck in a web. His arms and fists battered the interior in a futile pounding. The weight of his body pressing down on his head would surely break his neck any second.

  Surely I can’t go like this. It’s stupid–

  The water flowed up to the level of his eyes. He screwed them shut, and as he did so, another white flash flickered before his eyelids. No. No–

  And then he suddenly slumped sideways and downward, collapsing into the pool inside the overturned Volkswagen. The seatbelt had burst under his weight.

  Blundering, head down and feeling with his hands, a cascade of freezing water hit him as he pushed himself sideways. Something caught at his clothes, ripping at his hands, sticking deep into his back. Keep going. Rushing water splashed against his face and almost choked him, and he shut his eyes tight.

  He pushed himself through the window into the freezing wet mass.

  Hold your breath…

  He thrust with his arms, but something held his legs – he couldn’t move any further, and his throat burned and he wasn’t strong enough to do this, he needed air, he had to breath, he had to see what was happening–

  And then he was breathing.

  His head broke the surface of the water, and he took in deep, rasping gulps that burned his lungs with fire and ice. He crawled out of the ditch and onto the tarmac, coughing out the venomous ditch water. He rolled over onto his back…

  then screamed as the light returned, cutting a stark halo around him on the tarmac, blinding him, making his skin prickle and burn.

  “What are you?” Gareth yelled. “What do you want?”