The creature on the water opened its mouth and gave an ear-shattering roar and rushed forward towards the bank. Tim was still standing there watching it, as was Cat. It was as if the sight of it paralysed them.
‘Run!’ Lisa called back at them.
The words broke the spell. Tim spun round and chased after Lisa and Steve. Cat was a split second behind him. The creature reached the bank and exploded in a shower of water, spawn, mud and weed. Cat felt the water soak her back as she ran, cool at first, but gradually, as the water soaked through her shirt, it started to feel as though she had been drenched in acid. Tim was also soaked and was tearing at the buttons of his shirt. He stopped running and turned to Cat frantically. ‘It burns!’ he said. ‘It’s water, but it burns!’
Cat too had stopped running. She was fumbling with the cotton laces of her shirt and finally pulled it free, dropping it on the grass. The burning sensation was becoming more and more intense. It felt as though it had passed through her skin and entered her body, filling her up, making it difficult to breathe. She tried to call out to the others, but the burning had reached her lungs and all she could manage was a half-choked sob.
She looked at Tim and screamed. His skin was withering as he aged in front of her. He stared at Cat, a look of horror on his face, as he watched a similar transformation happening to her. Cat looked down at her hands, watched them shrivel into withered claws. She felt her life being sucked out of her, and at the same time felt something growing within her – something that was growing incredibly strong, incredibly powerful, as it sucked all the youth and goodness from her body.
Steve and Lisa were running up the slope. Lisa glanced back to see if the others were following and cried out in horror. Steve followed her gaze, a sick feeling of recognition sweeping over him.
‘Not them too…’ he said softly and began to pray silently.
Cat and Tim were standing in the centre of the grassy slope. Cat’s long hair was pure white; her clothes were hanging on her withered frame. Tim was on his knees, falling forward as his aging body started to crumble. Cat saw Lisa staring at her with tear-filled eyes and responded with a weak, pathetic wave. Behind her, seeming to emerge from her ravaged body was a black oily cloud of smoke that was forming pillar-like on the grass, gradually taking on shape and form.
As Steve and Lisa watched, Cat toppled forward on the grass, her spindly, brittle legs no longer supporting her. The column of smoke was solidifying, pulsing with life, growing denser. Eventually it assumed a form that was vaguely human and started to move up the slope towards then.
‘Run!’ Steve yelled. ‘The woods... We’ll lose it in the woods.’
Steve pulled Lisa down into a large thicket. The undergrowth was dense here – the ferns growing nearly the height of a man, the grasses and other plants left unchecked over the years. They crouched down, using the greenery for cover, and listened.
They listened for five minutes, and then five more, but apart from myriad woodland sounds, birdcalls and animal scurrying, there was nothing to hear.
‘I can’t believe she would have given up that easily,’ Steve said.
Lisa said nothing. She was as white as chalk and trembling violently. She couldn’t get out of her mind the vision of Cat and Tim being devoured from within. She uses people for food, she thought. Isabella Senice steals the life force from the people she encounters. ‘Lambs to the slaughter,’ she whispered softly.
‘What?’ Steve said.
‘That’s what it has all been about. We were lured here to feed her.’
‘Who?’
‘Isabella Senice is a witch. She’s lived for centuries by stealing the life force from others. That’s why it was all young people here. Teenagers with all their life in front of them. Sean and Susan... were they in a similar state to Cat?’
‘Sucked dry,’ Steve said bitterly. ‘They all looked so incredibly old.’ He spared Lisa the more graphic details – the flies, the maggots...
‘We have to stop her,’ Lisa said.
‘Wrong,’ Steve countered. ‘We have to get out of here. We can’t risk going back to the house.’ He put a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh! Listen.’
Away in the distance they could hear the unmistakable sound of a car’s engine.
‘The road,’ Steve said. ‘Over that way. Come on.’ He grabbed Lisa by the wrist and urged her to follow him.
17
As they walked through the woodland towards the road the brambles scratched their legs and nettles stung their bare skin. The wood was alive with movement and sound, but nothing to threaten or impede them.
Steve found it odd they had been allowed to escape so easily and it unnerved him. He was watching for shadows behind every tree, and every sudden sound made him jump.
Lisa walked at his side, saying nothing. She kept picturing Cat’s ravaged body, seeing her pretty face wasted by the evil that was Isabella Senice. It was so unfair. In their common misery they had found a bond. Had that bond been allowed to mature, Lisa felt they would have become good friends.
She also kept thinking about her dream before coming to the seminar. It was as if she had glimpsed the future. Had the creature at the piano in the school assembly hall been Isabella? If so, why had it been her own face she had seen first?
The questions bothered her, and she tried to find a link between the Spanish witch and herself.
‘I think it’s this way,’ Steve said, pointing to a path leading off at right angles from the main drag.
‘I’ll take your word for it. I’m completely lost. I haven’t heard a car for a while. Are you sure it’s the right path?’
‘Ninety nine per cent,’ he said. ‘Listen.’
As if on cue they could hear the sound of a motor, not more, Steve guessed, than two hundred yards away.
‘Come on.’ he said, and started to jog.
Lisa followed, trailing a little way behind.
They broke from the trees minutes later and found themselves at the roadside.
‘What now?’ Lisa said.
‘We start walking.’ He looked up at the sun sinking in the sky. He pointed left along the road. ‘That way will take us north. Come on.’
‘We’ve left all our things back at the house,’ Lisa said. ‘Are we just going to forget them?’
Steve looked at he incredulously. ‘You are joking,’ he said.
Tears began to roll down Lisa’s cheeks. She couldn’t care less about her belongings – the tears weren’t for clothes and books. The tears were for Susan and Sean, and for Cat and Tim. Although she had barely got to know any of them, just walking away from the house seemed so final; an acknowledgement in her own mind that she was never going to see them again.
Steve wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, knowing instinctively why she was crying. ‘We couldn’t have done more to help them,’ he said into her hair, and felt her head nod slightly in agreement.
Finally she pushed herself away from him, sniffed and rubbed the tears away from her eyes impatiently with the ball of her hand. ‘I’m all right now,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Lisa,’ Steve said hesitantly. ‘What we were talking about earlier... I know it’s probably not the right time... but I do lo...’
She put her finger to his lips. ‘Don’t say it,’ she said. ‘You’re right... Your timing’s lousy.’ She smiled at him.
He returned the smile weakly and shrugged. ‘North it is then,’ he said, and started to walk.
They heard the vehicle approaching before they saw it. Coming from behind them it didn’t sound as if it was moving very quickly.
‘Could be a farm truck,’ Steve said.
‘Probably a tractor, knowing our luck,’ Lisa said. ‘Look, I can see it.’
A quarter of a mile behind them the vehicle swung into view from round the corner of a bend. It took Steve a moment to realise that it wasn’t a farm truck or tractor. He saw the green and gold livery and realised it was the Senice Foundation van. He c
ould see Spike, eyes ablaze, grinning triumphantly as he gunned the accelerator and steered the van towards them.
Beside and behind Spike he could see the look of anticipation on the faces of Nick, Nancy and Allen. It was almost as if he was hypnotised by the approaching van – a rabbit frozen in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Lisa yanked his arm and broke the spell. ‘Steve, come on, run!’ she shouted.
Afterwards, when he thought about it, Steve couldn’t understand why they ran along the road instead of just ducking back into the trees, where cover was immediate. But he realised that taking the course they did probably saved their lives.
As they ran they could hear the roar of the van as it closed the distance between them. Steve imagined he could feel the heat from the engine on his back. They ran on; fearing that any moment the van would mow them down, squash them like bugs under its wheels.
They’re playing with us, Lisa thought. They could overtake us any time they like, but in some perverse way they’re enjoying the chase! ‘Split up,’ she yelled at Steve over the roar of the motor.
‘No!’ he shouted back at her. ‘We stick together!’ He reached out and grabbed her wrist.
She yanked it away from his grip and in doing so lost her balance, veering wildly onto the grass verge. The grass was wet and she slipped, and then she was falling rolling and tumbling down a steep embankment that had been hidden by the line of trees.
Whether Spike, trying to follow Lisa, miscalculated, or whether the van skidded on the wet grass Steve couldn’t say. He was aware of a flash of green and gold as the van slewed past him, and the sound of crunching metal as it scraped past the trees at the side of the road. Then it ran over the edge of the embankment and pitched into space.
Lisa was rolling down the grassy slope, hands scrabbling to make contact with something, anything to slow her progress. Her fingers closed around a tussock of long grass, and she stopped with a jolt and lay there staring up at the sky. She watched open mouthed as the van left the road and soared into space above her. She had a clear view of the underside of the vehicle as it sailed over her, crashing down on the grass slope just two yards away from her.
As it landed she heard the occupants screaming out in terror. Lisa could understand why. The van was out of control with no hope of stopping, ploughing on down the slope. At the bottom of the slope was a sheer drop into a limestone quarry.
The van passed over the lip of the quarry and seemed to hang there in space for seconds, and then it disappeared. For a moment there was absolute silence, as if Mother Nature herself was holding her breath.
The van hit the bottom of the quarry, bounced twice and burst into flames. The sound of the petrol tank exploding reached Lisa’s ears as nothing more than a soft whump. She looked up at Steve who had moved gingerly down the slope and was stretching out his hand to her.
‘I think I want to go home now,’ Lisa said, smiling wanly.
‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘I think we should.’
18
He sat on the park bench, overlooking the children’s playground. At two o’clock on a Monday afternoon the swings were empty, the park deserted. He was wearing dark glasses to protect his eyes from the fierce sun and headphones on his ears, connected to a iPod, playing as loud as he could bear it. It blocked out thought and drowned memories. He didn’t want memories. They were too painful.
He tried to read the paperback book he had brought with him, but the words swam in front of his eyes, sentences and paragraphs becoming a meaningless jumble. He slammed the book shut and leaned back on the bench, shutting his eyes, as the final track finished.
‘Hello, Steve.’
He snapped open his eyes and stared up at Lisa.
‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘Your mum said you’d probably be over here.’ She sat down on the seat next to him. ‘You know why I’m here?’
‘Yes, and like I said on the phone, the answer’s no; I’m not going back.’
‘Steve,’ Lisa said, taking his hand. ‘We must go back. It has to be finished.’
He pulled his hand away, stood up and walked across to one of the swings, dropping down on the rubber seat. ‘We were lucky to get out of Senice House alive. I can’t believe you seriously want to give them another chance to kill you.’
‘But it’s different this time. We know more – we can protect ourselves better. Steve, we owe it to the others...’
‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘That’s enough! Going back to Senice House would be like putting my head on the railway line and waiting for a train to run over it. We have to move on. Put what happened behind us. It was a bad dream, a nightmare, that’s all. It’s over now, and that’s how I intend to leave it.’ He pushed himself forward on the swing, wishing she would just go.
Lisa came around behind him and held onto the chains. ‘Well, I’m going back, with or without you.’
‘You’re mad. You won’t stand a chance.’
‘No, you’re right. Without you there I probably won’t. But I have to go anyway. I can’t let them... let her, get away with it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.’ She let go of the chains and started walking towards the park gates.
He watched her go, feeling empty inside, like something had been sucked out of him. He watched her blonde hair swinging down the back of her blue tee shirt, got up from the swing and kicked some bark chippings into the air angrily.
By the time he reached the three bedroomed-terraced house he shared with his mother and younger brother Billy, it was four o’clock. He had spent the past two hours walking the streets, thinking about Lisa, thinking about the events of the last week, and feeling guilty and thoroughly ashamed of himself. He felt like a coward.
His mother had a day off from her part time job at Sainsburys and was at home cooking tea for Billy, who sat, as he usually did, glued to the television. He was fourteen years old and acne had taken up residence on his face, making him so self-conscious that he rarely went out other than to go to school.
‘Hello, love,’ she said as Steve came in through the back door. ‘Can I get you something to eat? I’m doing beef burgers for Billy. I can stick a couple more under the grill.’
He shook his head. ‘No thanks, I’m fine.’
His mother frowned. ‘You’re not fine, Stevie. I’m getting worried about you. You’re not eating and you’re losing weight. Let me do you some sausages then...’
‘No, really, mum. I’m not hungry. I popped into MacDonald’s on the way home. Quarter pounder with cheese and large fries,’ he lied.
She looked at him sceptically. ‘Well. You know best. I can’t force it down you.’ She pulled out the grill pan and flipped the burgers over. ‘Did Lisa find you? I told her you’d probably be over the park. Gets more like her mother every day, that one.’
Steve ignored the dig and poured himself a glass of water, his attention attracted by the Tom and Jerry cartoon on the television. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She found me.’
‘And the man?’
He looked at her sharply. ‘Man?’
‘Tall, black wavy hair. Very smartly dressed, and so well spoken. Very handsome actually.’
DeMarney.
A chill ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. ‘Did you tell him where I was?’ he asked, trying very hard to keep his voice flat and unaffected.
‘Oh yes, I told him, but he said he wouldn’t try to track you down, He said he’d come back later.’
As if on cue there was a knock at the front door.
‘That will probably be him now,’ his mother said, walking up the passage way to the front door. ‘Yes, it’s him, Stevie. I can see his car parked outside.’
But Steve had already pulled open the back door and was running through the garden and out of the gate into the alley that ran along the back of the terrace. The alley opened out onto Cromwell Road. From there it was half a mile to the railway station. He ran it in minutes.
As usual th
e ticket office was closed, but then the station was on a branch line and it was only used by suburban trains, and then infrequently.
He was panting for breath as he entered the waiting room, his chest tight, and his lungs on fire. He stood by the window from where he could see right along the platform to the entrance. From there no one could enter the station without him seeing.
He pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and phoned home. Billy answered. ‘Steve, where are you? Mum’s going spare...’
‘Never mind that. Has he gone?’
‘Has who gone?’
‘DeMarney.’
‘Dewho?
‘The tall man with dark hair.’
‘That’s what I was saying. Mum invited him in to see you and you’d gone. He’s gone now. Didn’t seem that chuffed.’
‘Right, now listen. Go up into my room, get my holdall from under the bed and pack some clothes in it. Jeans, tee shirts, pants and socks. My toothbrush is in the bathroom cabinet. When you’ve done that, look in the bottom drawer of my dressing table. There’s a building society book, right at the bottom, under a pile of magazines. Put that in the bag too...’
‘What’s all this about?’ Billy interrupted. ‘You doing a runner? What you done wrong?’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Steve told his brother patiently. ‘But I need to get away for a few days. Look, when you’ve packed everything, bring the bag to the station. I’m in the waiting room.’
‘Which side? Up line or down line?’
‘Up line.’
‘Give me half an hour.’
‘Great, and Billy...’
‘What?’
‘Don’t let mum know where I am, and make sure you’re not followed.’
Billy snorted in contempt. ‘Very cloak and dagger. You’ve been watching too many Spooks.’
‘Shut up and just do it, Billy.’ He hung up and punched in another number.
The phone he was dialling seemed to ring for an eternity. Finally it was answered.
A Weaving of Ancient Evil Page 10