His first thought was: he's dead. The old man lay flat in bed, his eyes closed, his face pale and not human, more like a waxwork. His breathing was the only sign that he was still alive. The sound was faint and laboured, as if every breath was an effort. John looked over beside the bed and saw the airline draped along the floor on the far side of the oxygen cylinder, which had been dragged a few inches back from the bed. Only a few inches, but right out of Charles's reach.
Oh God, John thought. Oh God. He heard a stumbling thump on the landing behind him, and without thinking he slammed the door shut, and pushed his hands against it. Pointless, he thought. Elias might be slow when he's controlling Alan, but he'll still have more strength than I do. He looked around the room for something that he could push against the door but saw nothing that he would be able to move in time. Then he saw the key.
Idiot, idiot, he thought, an old house like this, of course it has. He didn't waste any more time, just locked the door and ran over to the bed.
"Charles, it's me," he said, and the old man's eyelids fluttered but he did not move. His breathing was shallow, and made a sound like the sea on the shingle.
A thumping began on the bedroom door. It was slow and without rhythm, but there was some force behind it and John did not know how long the door would last. He pulled the oxygen cylinder back towards the bed, picked the airline up and sniffed at it, held it to his ear. He didn't think anything was coming out. John slipped the tube over Charles's head, rested the yellow plastic vent under his nose. That would do, as long as it would just stay in place. The door shook in its frame as Elias used Alan to pound at it, a clumsy marionette stumbling around to do his bidding but with little co-ordination.
John looked at the oxygen cylinder in bewilderment. There was something that looked like a tap, and something that looked like one of the control knobs on the radiators at home. There was also a dial, with one end of the scale shaded in red. The needle was flat at the other end of the scale. Okay, John thought, I know how much I can give him without making the whole thing blow his nose off. But how? The door shook again, and John heard a splintering sound. No time to hesitate. He grabbed the control that looked like a tap and pulled it on, full. Nothing happened. The needle stayed where it was, and he could not hear any sound from the hose. Another heavy bang came on the door, and this time there was the sound of cracking wood.
John turned the knob, one, two, three twists, taking it round as quickly as he could. There was an immediate hiss from the hose, and the needle leapt up towards the red end of the dial. John stopped turning, went back two turns. The needle flickered and then settled down, quite high, but not near the red area. Best to leave it as high as I can, John thought. He checked to see that the air outlet was directly under Charles's nose, and then looked around the room to see if he could find anything to push against the door, anything that would keep Alan—Elias—out for a little bit longer.
There was not much else in the room other than the bed. There was a heavy-looking wooden dresser, with old photographs standing on the top, which John did not think he would be able to move. There was the bed, a wardrobe that looked heavier than the dresser, and the chair that John had sat in when he came to visit Charles. That will have to do John thought, remembering films where the hero had propped a chair under a door handle to give himself enough time to escape. He grabbed the back of the chair, and was halfway across the room with it when the door crashed open, hanging drunkenly on one hinge for a second before falling to the floor. Alan stood in the doorway. John stood in the middle of the room. Behind him, he could hear Charles muttering but could not hear what it was that he was trying to say.
"Alan," John said. "It's me, John. It's your dad here, it's Charles, I know how much you love him, look after him. Fight Elias, Alan, he's weak. If you fight him he can't control you."
Alan stepped forward into the room but after a step he paused, clenching and unclenching his hands, his eyes flickering open and shut.
"That's it, fight him. Go on Alan, don't let him win. He'll harm your dad."
John heard a voice from behind him, a thin croak that lapsed into a wheezing cough.
"Don't try and talk Charles," John said. "Just breathe."
Alan took one step forward, and then another. John moved away, trying to create as much space as possible between himself and Alan, trying to draw the man away from the door so that he could make a break for it. Elias was slow, clumsy in another man's body, drained of power, and weakening. If John could slip past, Alan could not catch up to him. But what good would that do, John thought? I can't leave Charles, not after what Elias made Alan do. And I can't go to the police, what am I going to say, don't arrest this man and charge him with attempting to murder his father, he's only temporarily possessed by the spirit of an old man who died years ago but somehow is still alive. Or is something that is like being alive.
John felt more trapped than he had in the cave, trapped by the presence of Charles behind him, faced with something that he could not just run from. Alan took another step forward, closing in. Then he shuddered, shook, and moved a step away from John. John thought for one moment that Elias had lost control, that this was Alan gaining the upper hand, but then he realised that it was not. Elias was saving John for later. Alan was heading towards the bed again, towards his father. Elias must have realised that his hold was weakening, but if he could take the life of an already frail old man then John would be left without an ally, left without knowledge of how to do anything other than Elias's bidding. And maybe, John thought, he's going to kill Charles to teach me a lesson, to teach me not to disobey him again.
And in that second, John knew what to do to save Charles. He stepped between Alan and the bed, and said, "Come on, then."
Alan stopped, waved his arms in front of him, as if he were trying to swat a fly. John easily ducked out of the way. Alan walked forward until John had no option other than to come into physical contact with him to prevent him from reaching the bed. The man raised his hands to smash them down, but John ducked down almost to a crouch, grabbed at one of the ankles in front of him, and then rolled to the side, putting all his weight behind it.
Already off balance, Alan fell to the floor with a crash that made the photo frames jump into the air off the top of the dresser. He had not done any of the usual things to break his fall, had not put his hands out, had not tried to turn himself to cushion the blow. Elias did not have the control to do it. He could make Alan stand again though, scrabble to his feet, and send him lurching across the room again.
“Sorry, Alan," John said, and he ducked behind him, jumped on his back and pulled hard, as hard as he could. Alan started to fall again, and John quickly let go and jumped away. He landed awkwardly, and for a moment pain stabbed at his ankle, but he had managed to not be under Alan when he fell. This time the man was even slower getting up. When he was on his feet he stood for a moment, shaking his head, swaying from side to side. John could see that Charles had struggled up to a sitting position in the bed, and was staring out at them.
"It's not him," John said. "It's not your son doing this. It's Elias."
Charles nodded, did not try to speak. Alan stood between them, muscles rippling along his face as though something was burrowing beneath the skin.
"Come on, Elias," John said. "A young boy and an old man, and we're getting the better of you. Is this the best you can do?"
Alan shuddered and groaned and then spoke, his voice thick and hoarse, as if the air were being dragged up from his lungs.
“Get...what I want...or... all of them.” Charles's eyes widened at the sound. It was his son speaking, but not his son's voice. “I will take. All. Them. You. Sister. All."
"So come on, then. Do it now. I'm never going to get the stone for you Elias, never. So you might as well do it now. Come on, you're the one with such great power, you're the one that says he can raise the dead, that takes over the bodies of the living—come on, one boy and one old man, surely even yo
u can manage that, dead man."
Alan lumbered forward again, but this time he was more uncoordinated than ever, and looked as if he were walking through glue. He came towards John, but shot one hand out to grasp the end of the bed, stopping himself from moving forward.
"Go on, Alan!" John shouted. "Fight him. He's getting weaker."
Alan's other hand came round and prised the hand from the end of the bed. As the resistance gave way, he went stumbling forward again and all John had to do was to step out of the way. Alan slammed to the floor again, and this time he stayed down there. One hand skittered and searched about, like an insect searching for prey, but John moved back out of the way and it could not reach him. Alan's eyes fluttered open and then closed again, and his mouth moved as if he were whispering. Then with one last shiver, he managed to speak one more time.
"More than death," he said, "that is what I promise you.” Alan’s body convulsed, his shoes drumming on the floor, and then he was still. Breathing, but still. John looked at him, wary of another trick.
"I think he's gone," he said. "Elias. He's done so much tonight, I think he was weak, he couldn't hold on to Alan any longer. Seems he only has so much power, and when it's gone he can't do anything until he—wherever he gets it from—until it comes back. I'm so sorry, Charles."
"Sorry?" the old man's voice was still a whisper, but it carried more of its old fire. "What do you have to be sorry for, boy?"
"Bringing this upon you, bringing this thing into your lives. He—" John gestured at Alan, was about to say he nearly killed you, but then he thought that Charles might not know about the air hose, and that if he didn't it would be best left unsaid.
"It isn't your fault. You didn't ask for this, this...thing. You can't blame yourself for something that you had no control over. How's my son?"
John bent over Alan. The man's face had relaxed now, had lost much of the tension that had pulled it in such a way that it no longer looked like his own. His chest was rising and falling at regular intervals.
"I think he's asleep," John said. "Just asleep."
"Let him," Charles said, "There's spare bedding in the bottom drawer there, make him comfortable, will you."
John took a blanket and a pillow from the drawer. He draped the blanket over Alan, lifted his head with care and slid the pillow underneath. Alan didn't stir.
"He'll be stiff as a board in the morning, and with a raging headache," Charles said, "but he's slept on plenty of floors before. And he’ll have had worse hangovers."
"Will he—will he remember?"
"Doubt it." The old man paused for a moment, taking in more of the oxygen with slow wheezing breaths. "He will probably not remember a thing from the moment it started to the moment he wakes. Which is all for the best, I think."
There was silence for a while, just the gentle hissing of the air hose.
"What will you tell him?"
"About what's happened? Nothing at all. It isn't Alan's world, John. He won't believe me. He'll think that I'm turning senile as well as breathless."
"He's going to know that something's happened when he wakes up on your floor."
Charles nodded. "I'll tell him that I had a bad night, and he was concerned so he slept on the floor here, much against my protests of course. He'll be puzzled that he can't remember it but put it down to being tired and one too many malt whiskies. Anyway, let me worry about that in the morning. What makes a dead man so concerned about what I might tell you, that he takes possession of my own son to try and kill me?"
"You believe me?" John asked. "That I've seen him."
Charles smiled wearily. "Lad, I knew him, remember. I've just heard his voice. You don't have to convince me. Yes, I believe you. There are things in this world—" he broke off, coughing, and John thought that it wasn't going to stop. Eventually Charles got his breath under control. "I travelled, when I was young. In the navy. Went to some strange parts of the world. Saw some strange things, John. Things that others did not see. Or chose not to see. Maybe it's like a sense of smell, or taste. Some of us can just smell more than others, taste things that others cannot. See things that others cannot. You can, I know that, more than me. I can feel it when you walk in the room. It's like a feeling before a storm, the hairs on my neck stand up when I'm close to someone who has it. It is what drew Elias to you. It's a rare thing."
"Why—" John stopped.
"Go on."
"Why didn't Elias just take you over? To stop me talking to you? Or why not Sal or Simon?" John felt a sudden twist of paranoia, thought back to the meeting in the street. No, they had been themselves. He would have known.
"I don't know," Charles said. "Something we have in common, although I can’t think what."
"Charles," John said. "Can I ask a strange question?"
"Nothing on this night would be strange. Go ahead."
"Have you ever walked around Hob's Hole? Around the edge?"
Charles was silent for a moment. "You have, then," he said eventually.
"Yes."
"And your friends?"
"Yes."
"I was fourteen," Charles said. "I was terrified. But I did it all the same. I told Alan about it a few years ago, when we were having a conversation about the local legends. He laughed, told me I was crazy, and that wild horses wouldn't make him walk around the ledge. I don't think he ever did. So maybe the hob does grant his protection, after all.”
"I don't think it could protect me from everything Elias has," John said. "Maybe from the possession, but there are...other things."
"Do you know what that creature wants from you?"
John told Charles about his meeting on the cliff-top with Elias, about the jet. "But I don't know what to do," he said. "If I don't do as he says, he said he would hurt everyone I care for. And I've seen what he can do, I can't take that risk. But if I do get it...what would I be giving him, Charles? What would I be giving this man the power to do?"
“Not a man, anymore," Charles said. "But I understand your fear. Whatever he's done, however he's kept himself...here, after his time. He can't do it forever. That's why he's so desperate. He has waited all this time for the stone, and if he does not get it, he will just wither away into the dust that he should be. From what you say, doing everything he is now is weakening him. This might be one last, desperate, roll of the dice for Elias."
"So what do I do?" John said. "I didn't know who else to talk to, but I don't know what to do. I'm only a kid."
"A child," Charles said. "A kid is a young goat. But yes, you are a child. But I think you are also more than that, much more. Someone like you could get the stone, as he wants. But someone like you could also put it beyond his reach, beyond the reach of any mortal he might use like he used my son."
"Where?"
"Hob's Hole," Charles said. "Give it back to the Hob. Throw the jet down and get out of the village, John. Get away from Elias."
"And what about you, about Laura and Simon, and Sal?"
Charles closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "We will have to take our chances. With all the power he is spending pursuing you, his threats are nothing more than a bluff, I’m sure of that.”
John smiled at the old man, with great affection, and a great sadness. He knew who was bluffing.
"So all I have to do is get it?" John said.
"Yes," said Charles. "But when you do, he will be waiting for you. And he will do everything within his power to get it from you."
"So what can I do?" John asked. “Once I have the stone, how do I stop him from getting it from me?"
"You run," Charles said. "You run and be brave, John. That is all that you can do."
Chapter Fourteen
The climb up the path felt like an unending journey through a nightmare, a dream where death and terror is only a moment away. A couple of times every year John had a recurring dream in which he was climbing a giant ziggurat, a hulking tower of stone in the middle of a desert. The sand stretched out in
every direction towards the horizon, under the cruel flat heat of the sky. In every direction there was nothing but endless sand. In the dream John had to climb the ziggurat, step after painful step up the steep stone blocks. He never wanted to look down, but at some point in the dream he always did, and then pressed himself to the rough hot stone in terror at the sight of the terrifying drop below.
The path to the cliff top was wide enough that it presented no problem in the daylight, but at night it seemed insubstantial and the ground seemed rougher, hidden hollows and sticking out rocks waiting to catch an unwary foot. John could hear the hiss of the sea a long drop below, calling to him, whispering promises. He shuffled along the path, trailing one hand along the cliff where possible, the rough scraping of the rock against his hand his guide.
When he was three-quarters of the way up the path it narrowed and he could see the blackness that lay just a step away, the airy drop into nothing. A fierce desire to look down came upon him, just like in his dream, and at first he resisted, but then he thought don't be stupid, it's just a dream. So he rooted his feet firmly on the packed earth of the path and looked down. The cliff below him faded into shadow not far down, but he could see the lightness of the sand on the beach, and the white boil of the waves as they surged in and broke themselves on the land. He took a couple of deep breaths, and then grinned. There. Beaten it. He set off back up the cliff path, and thought to himself that he would not dream that dream again.
The cliff-top was deserted. John left the path, and walked over the field towards the edge of the cliff. The wind plucked and tugged at his clothes. A long way below, he could hear the boom and crash of the sea.
John’s mobile rang.
He took it from his pocket. The display read “Caller Not Known.” John pressed the divert button to send the call to voicemail. Before he could put the phone back in his pocket, it rang again, the ringtone faster than it should be, notes playing that weren’t ever there, like there were two songs playing at once.
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