“What’s up?”
“Your phone,” she said. “It’s been ringing for the past twenty minutes. Mark wants it turned off.”
“Shit. Sorry, crap,” I said as she frowned and glanced pointedly at the nearby customers. “I’ll turn it off now.”
“Better be quick,” she replied and I nodded and set off for the warehouse.
I was going so fast that I didn’t watch where I was going and collided with one of the customers, almost bowling him over as I barged around the corner of the aisle. He grabbed my arms and steadied me, before saying with a smile, “hey, you okay?”
“Sorry, wasn’t watching.”
“No problem,” he said as I looked up at him. A cute smile and a firm jaw beneath eyes of hazel that almost sparkled. I flashed a quick smile of my own that faded as dark lines appeared around his eyes and mouth, moving outwards like creeping tendrils of shadow.
“Something wrong?” he asked and I shook my head as I tried to fix a smile in place. He hadn’t released his hold on me and it felt as though he were drawing all heat from my body where he touched me.
The dark tendrils around his eyes and mouth had thickened and I shook my head to indicate I was fine as I tore my gaze from him. “Sorry,” I said. “Bit of a rush, manager needs me.”
“That’s okay,” he said and flashed that smile that seemed more repulsive than cute with the blackness around it. He released my arms and I set off at a brisk walk, glancing back once to see him watching me thoughtfully, his face clear of the dark tendrils.
More than a little shaken I ducked into the warehouse and waved absently at Mark as he frowned quite forcefully at me. His overly bushy eyebrows drawn down almost to a perfect ‘V’ so deep was his frown.
As I approached the lockers the sound of my phone became audible and I winced. I’d never actually bothered changing the ringtone, since no one ever called me, and it was on some default setting that was a high pitched series of beeps that kept repeating.
The men and women at the Goods Inwards station next to the lockers looked rightly pissed as they saw me approach. Couldn’t blame them after listening to that for twenty minutes. I pulled out my locker key and quickly pulled it open.
I picked up my mobile and saw that I had four messages from an unknown number, all saying the same thing. “Answer,” and the phone was still ringing so I clicked the button to receive the call and held it up to my ear.
“About time,” a gruff sounding Abe said.
“I’m at work, can this wait?”
“No. Where are you?”
“At work…”
“Where’s that? I’ll come to you.”
“I’m at,” I began and paused as an idea occurred. “Wait, are you coming to, you know, kill me? I mean if you are, I’m not going to tell you where I am.”
“Wouldn’t I just lie and say that I wasn’t?” he countered. “Then kill you anyway?”
“I suppose…”
“Then you may as well trust me when I say I’m not going to kill you,” he said.
Since I had little real choice and I wanted to know what he’d found out, along with the fact that if he really meant me harm it wouldn’t be that hard to find me for someone in the business of hunting monsters, I gave in.
“Fine, I’m at Weston’s Supermarket, it’s down by…”
“I know it,” he interrupted. “I’ll head down there now.”
“Wait!” I said as Mark called my name in that tone of voice he used when most displeased with one of his minions. Usually always me.
“What?”
“Something weird just happened.”
“Weird how?”
“I bumped into this guy and his face was all messed up,” I said as I glanced to the workers nearby to make sure they weren’t listening in.
“How is that weird?”
“It wasn’t messed up before I bumped into him. It… well, it had all these black marks crossing it as I watched and then it went back to normal.”
There was silence from the other end and I wondered if he’d disconnected for a moment but then he spoke again.
“Is that person still nearby?” Abe asked.
“I dunno, he was on the shop floor so probably.”
“Stay where you are,” Abe said and I heard the tension in his voice. “Make sure you have a lot of people around you all the time. I’ll call when I get there.”
He hung up and I was left wondering what the hell he meant as I stared down at my phone. A tap on my shoulder made me jump as I spun around expecting, I don’t know what.
“Turn the phone off and go back to work,” Mark said.
“Yes, sorry,” I said. “Really sorry, won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t Ms. Lunn,” he said as he glanced down to his watch. A cheap ass timepiece with plastic straps and a digital display. “I’ll not deduct any more time from you but Tina has already begun to cover the work you were doing so I’d like you to do something else for the rest of the day.”
I held back a groan. Mark had limited power over his workers and his favourite way of showing his displeasure with someone was to give them one of the truly crappy jobs that nobody wanted to do. I, of course, had ended up doing most of those jobs in the past six months of employment.
“What job?” I asked and kept my eyes downcast to appear as meek and contrite as possible.
“You, young lady, will go out back and begin breaking up the cardboard boxes. I want them all flattened and stacked neatly in the recycling container.”
Crap! The one thing I’d been told to do was stay around people and I’d just been given a job that would leave me alone behind the supermarket. One look at Mark though and I could see the irritation in his eyes. I needed this job and I’d already pissed him off twice today so I’d just have to suck it up and hope Abe got there soon.
I made a show of putting my phone back into my locker and as soon as my back was to him, I slipped the mobile into the waistband of my trousers as I wished they had pockets. After I locked up the locker, Mark made a point of escorting me to my new workstation.
We went through a plain blue painted door and out into the warmth of the summer morning. There was barely a cloud in the sky and dust filled the air, drifting over in a cloud from the industrial unit one lot over.
Mark left me with a pointed look at the large pile of cardboard boxes and closed the door behind him as he left. I finally let out the sigh.
The supermarket was one long rectangular building of red brick. It had a flat roof and a carpark in front of it with enough space for several hundred cars. Deliveries went into a separate fenced off area to one side and steel railings made up the fence that enclosed the back area.
Noise, dust, and the occasional lewd comment would come from the industrial units and in summer, the back area was a heat trap while in winter it was bloody freezing. All the stores waste went out there though to be put in either one of the two large steel containers.
Food waste and other garbage went into the open-topped container with solid sides. Slightly smaller than the other, it stank to high heaven and usually had swarms of flies hanging around the black bagged waste.
The other container had an open top but one end wall was actually a door that swung open, allowing the lucky worker to walk in and out with the recyclable waste. For Mark, that meant instead of just tossing everything in, we could break down and flatten the paper and card waste and stack it neatly. That way we could fit more in before we had to call for it to be collected. Efficient and satisfying to his anal supreme-ness.
Everybody hated doing it. The supermarket ended up with a lot of packing boxes that needed breaking down by hand and carrying in. I’d done it several times so far and it was easily my most hated job, even considering I’d had to clean the public bathrooms and the state they were usually in was a level beyond disgusting.
I took one look around the enclosed space and figur
ed I’d be safe enough. No one could just wander by, so whatever Abe had been worried about shouldn’t be a problem. With that in mind, I set to work.
Twenty minutes later I pressed both hands into the small of my back and pressed down to try and massage the ache away. It didn’t help. I grabbed the next box and swore as I realised it was one of those that had metal staples in the bottom to keep it secure. That meant pulling each one out because god forbid we send some metal staples to the recycling facility by accident.
On the third staple, I yelped and threw the box down as a drop of blood appeared on my finger where the staple had just dug into it. Great, now I’ll probably get tetanus.
“That looks sore,” a voice said and I whirled to see the guy I’d bumped into earlier. He leant against the wall beside the only door back into the supermarket, hands stuffed into the pockets of his light jacket. “Took me a while to find you.”
“Who are you?”
“Ah, ah, pretty girl, my question first.”
“What?” I said as I looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. His face looked normal for the moment but I remembered what I’d seen.
“Yes indeed,” he agreed. “What, as in, what are you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and he grinned, showing straight white teeth. He looked, for all the world, like a cute guy anyone would be interested in dating. I couldn’t shake that image though, the black tendrils writhing across his face.
“I think you do, pretty,” he said as he pushed himself away from the wall. “You don’t smell right.”
“Screw you!” I said and his grin widened.
“Maybe,” he said as his gaze moved down across my body in a truly invasive way. “I’ve had to stay inside the past couple of weeks,” he continued. “Damned wolves have been out searching, limits my playtime, you know?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re on about. You need to leave before I call security.”
“Call them, pretty,” he said and as though a mask had slipped from his face, his expression changed. “They won’t help.”
He stalked forward, forcing me to stumble back until I came up against the steel railings and a whimper escaped from me. His eyes glittered at that, as though excited by my fear. He stopped right in front of me as I pushed back against the railings.
His head tilted, nostrils flaring as he inhaled my scent and a shudder ran through him. One hand grabbed the railing beside my head while with the other, he reached out and placed one finger against my leg, slowly moving it up over my hips and across my belly as I turned my face away and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Now, now, pretty,” he said, his voice a sibilant hiss that promised pain and terror unimagined. “Look at me.”
The urge to scream, to cry was strong but not strong enough. It was as though I were paralysed by fear and I knew that what would come next would be a reminder of all those nights with the foster parents. I began to tremble and his breathing increased, pleased with my response.
His finger moved up over my breast, lingering by the top button of my shirt and with a flick of the finger, the button flew off and I could practically sense his smirk. The stench of rot and decay filled my senses as he leaned close, his face, millimetres from my own as his finger flicked free the next button down.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he whispered directly into my ear, his breath hot and moist, filling me with revulsion. “If you’re good, maybe you will too.”
My eyes snapped open and I turned my head to look at him, to stare him in the eyes that were surrounded by darkness now as I heard those same words that had been whispered to me so many times before. “No,” I said, revulsion turning to rage.
“Good,” he practically sighed. “I do so enjoy it when they try to fight back.”
Anger, fury, boiled within me. A seeming white hot ball of raging hatred for whatever this creature was before me. I wanted him to hurt, to feel the pain and fear he inflicted on others. I wanted above all else, to make sure that the dark things he wanted to do, were never done to me or anyone else again.
Moving without conscious thought my hand moved up to press against his chest and he glanced down at it, amusement plain on his face. “What’re you trying to do?” he asked.
“Kill you,” I snapped as all that anger, all that righteous fury inside of me surged outwards through my hand. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream as darkness boiled from me, thick tentacles of it wrapping him tight, moving over and around him like fog.
It flowed into his mouth and the scream of pain never came as it pushed its way down his throat and up across his face, over his eyes where flashes of red and orange fire flared as he struggled and shook in my grasp.
The snapping of his ribs sounded as the darkness compressed, squeezing him in its grip. A thin line of crimson ran down his cheek from beneath the darkness covering his eyes and nausea filled me. All I wanted was for him to be as far from me as possible and a fresh surge of something ran through me before he was propelled backward to crash into the piled boxes.
I tried to fight nausea but it overcame me and the contents of my stomach splashed across the concrete floor as my eyes rolled up and darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter 5
Abe’s face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Grizzled and sporting several days growth of stubble, his eyes were bloodshot and bore dark rings around them as though he’d barely slept. I groaned and a smile formed on his lips.
“You okay kid?”
“Not sure,” I said as he held out a hand to me. I grasped it and he practically hauled me to my feet. “What happened… oh!”
The feet of the man who’d attacked me were sticking out from the crushed pile of boxes and Abe glanced over his shoulder to where I looked. He nodded sagely and his smile remained, though I thought perhaps it wavered a little.
“You certainly made a mess,” he said.
“Crap! I did that didn’t I?” he nodded and I reached up to grab a handful of hair, but of course it was too damn short. “How did I do that?”
“We can talk about that later,” he said. “For now, we need to get as far from here as possible.”
“No way! We need to call the police.”
“They won’t be much use to you and what’re you going to say to them?”
“I don’t know, I mean… oh crap.”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Come on, van’s parked out front.”
“How did you get here?” I asked as he led me back towards the door. I caught one glimpse of the body as I passed and fought back the sudden urge to gag as I saw the hollowed out sockets where his eyes had been.
“Arrived just as… well, just as you did what you did at the end there.”
“You saw?” I asked and he nodded. “But you didn’t kill me.”
“Aye,” he replied by way of acknowledgement and refused to say more though the corners of his mouth turned upwards in a faint smile.
Several faces turned our way as we entered the warehouse, the door slamming shut behind us with a loud bang. I cringed as Mark turned to watch us but he didn’t say anything as Abe led me straight past him.
“What did you say to him?” I whispered as we walked through the busy supermarket.
“Told him I was your uncle and it was a family emergency,” he said and I groaned.
“They know I’m an orphan!”
“Won’t matter after they go out back,” he said. “Doubt you’ll still have a job.”
“Crap!”
He looked back at me over his shoulder with one eyebrow cocked and I shrugged in response. I needed that job and I really didn’t need the police questioning me about a dead body. About someone I killed. Nausea surged inside of me again and I fought it back down, telling myself he wasn’t a nice person or even human. I think.
“What was he?” I asked as we climbed into Abe’s van.
�
��Probably a ghoul,” he said as pulled on his seatbelt and started the van. It came to life with a gurgling roar that didn’t sound at all healthy or safe.
“I’ve heard of them. They live in graveyards and eat the dead.”
“Pah! That’s just folklore,” he said. “You should forget all that nonsense because it barely scratches the surface. Ghouls can take human form, usually that of their latest victim. They like to play with their food a bit before eating and they’re viciously cruel.”
“It said it could smell me,” I said as he set off through the car park, eyes fixed firmly on the road. “Said it knew I wasn’t human and that wolves had stopped it feeding.”
“Aye, the wolves are pissed about the one I killed,” Abe admitted.
“What wolves?”
“There’s a pack that live around here. Like to go up on the moors to run during a full moon. They’re probably more upset that there was a man killer in the area and they didn’t get to deal with it.”
“I thought you hunted werewolves,” I said.
“If they kill people,” he said firmly. “If they keep to themselves and don’t harm anyone. I’m not wasting my time going after them. Now hush, I need to concentrate on where I’m going. We can talk more when we get there.”
His mouth was set in a thin line and the knuckles of his hands were white where he gripped the steering wheel. He seemed on edge and I figured it was best not to argue since I had no other idea what to do.
My phone beeped and I pulled it from the waistband, amazed it hadn’t fallen out already, and read the brief text from Evie confirming we were still on to meet. I sent back an apology and said I’d call her later before I turned it off.
We passed the rest of the journey in silence as we moved from the city, out to the suburbs and then beyond. Rather than watch the occasional field of cows or sheep, I tried to figure out what the hell had happened back at the supermarket.
The man, or perhaps ghoul’s, face had looked normal some of the time and not at others. I wondered at first if it was supposed to be like that, or perhaps I could only see it at certain times and then it hit me. Each time its face had distorted had been when it was touching me.
Born of Shadow (Shadow Walkers Book 1) Page 4