11.
A green laser ran down both chambers as the machine scanned both subjects. Jenny craned her head round so she could see Patrick inside the chamber. He was on the floor on his front trying to push the door open. He began to beat at it weakly with his fist, but the thick glass wasn’t budging. Jenny could see him trying to speak. The words on his lips were as clear as day to her.
Help me
In the other chamber the titanium circles began to rotate. The inner circle went forwards running down the front of the chamber. They began to get faster until soon they were a blur. Jenny knew that time was getting short. She began to work her hands out of the ropes that were wrapped around her wrists. Patrick had left them loose enough so that it didn’t take her long to get one of her hands loose. She stood up out of the chair and shook the ropes loose form her wrist. She could hear a faint banging coming from the chamber at the other side of the room. She looked and through the haze of the rapidly turning circles she could see Richard kicking the glass door in an attempt to free himself. He was bellowing something at her but the thick glass prevented her from hearing it. She turned her attention back to Patrick. She went to the door of his chamber and tried to pull the door open, but it was locked and it wasn’t going to budge, no matter what. She picked up the chair that she had been tied to and began to swing it at the glass door. The chair bounced off the glass every time that she did it. It made one small chink in the glass, but nothing more. She began to panic, looking round the room for something, anything to get that door open. Then her eyes fell upon Richard’s shotgun lying on the control panel. She snatched it up and took aim at Patrick’s chamber. Her eyes momentarily focused on the screen on the control panel.
BEGIN SEQUENCE
It said.
“Oh shit,” she said and then she turned back to the chamber. Right before her eyes, Patrick looked for a moment like he was being stretched upwards, then he vanished. She uttered an almost inhuman scream and then turned the gun onto Richard’s chamber. This time she didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger all the way back, discharging both barrels at the blur of titanium and Richard Hurst. There was a loud metallic clang as the shots hit the circles. The shots didn’t even scratch the circles but the impact was enough to throw them out of alignment. They began to rapidly clang together and send small pieces of metal flying in all directions. Some of the shards buried themselves into the floor and the ceiling. Jenny ran behind the empty chamber and ducked down. Pieces of metal were flying in all directions, buzzing through the air as they flew. Finally, the circles were thrown completely off their tracks and into the chamber containing a screaming Richard Hurst. The chamber glass was tough but it was no match for the jagged edges of the titanium circles. The chamber glass exploded and the metal from the circle sliced Richard James Hurst into four pieces. A mass of blood and intestines was thrown from the wreckage and outwards onto the floor. Richard’s head, shoulders and one of his arms came out of the explosion and slapped the floor. Then everything went quiet, just for a few moments. Jenny came out from her hiding place and stood looking at the carnage. There was no sign of Patrick, nothing at all. She had seen him pulled apart inside the machine and now the machine had stopped. She had an idea that he was still in there somewhere, and that there was a way to get him back, but she had no idea where to start. There was a steady beeping coming from the control panel and out of sheer curiosity she went to see why it was making a noise. She looked at the screen and her eyes widened.
ERROR – ABORT CURRENT SEQUENCE?
YESNO
She touched the screen on ‘YES’ and there was a sudden flash of light from the chamber. Jenny looked over and saw Patrick back in the chamber, still on the floor where he had been when he had vanished. The door clicked and then popped open just a little. Jenny pulled the door open and dragged Patrick out of the chamber by his hands. She looked down at him expecting him to be dead, but instead he was looking up at her with a little smile on his face.
“Patrick, are you alright?” said Jenny.
“That shit really works, my balls don’t hurt no more,” he said.
Jenny burst out laughing and pulled him up so she could hug him. Then she suddenly felt Patrick stiffen in her arms and begin to pull backwards.
“Jesus…” he said.
Jenny turned round and saw with horror that the remains of Richard Hurst were crawling towards them. His one remaining arm was slapping the floor and dragging the mutilated carcass across the blood and intestine laden floor. The Richard thing opened his mouth and began to scream at them.
“Rendor…..Rendor….Rendor’s….lesson. I saw Rendor…Patty boy….look what you did….Rendor….”
Patrick began to panic. How could he know about Rendor? How the fuck could he know? He scrambled backwards, trying to get as far away from that thing as he could. Suddenly Jenny was pulling him to his feet. She began to drag him towards the door but he stopped her.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said.
“If I don’t stop him, he will keep on coming back,” said Patrick. He stepped forwards and grabbed the hand of the Richard thing. He dragged it to the remaining chamber and threw him inside. He closed the door on Richard and then went to the control panel.
“What are you doing?” said Jenny.
“I’m going to overload this fucker and it’s going to take him with it,” said Patrick. He pushed buttons and turned dials and the machine began to hum alarmingly. The pylons over the house began to fizz so loudly that they could hear them over the noise of the machine.
“Come on, we have two minutes to get clear,” said Patrick. He grabbed Jenny’s hand and they ran to the door. Patrick’s hands were shaking so badly that it took three attempts to get the code right. Then the door popped open and they went through.
In the living room, Slater was on his feet, cradling his arm. Outside the house, the police helicopter was buzzing overhead and more officers were arriving.
“Come on, this whole place is about to go up,” shouted Jenny. Slater began to follow them out of the front door. He was trying to run as gingerly as he could.
They got outside and began to yell at everyone to get clear. They all made for the narrow road out of Layton House. As they ran the Pylons began to crackle and forks of electricity began to shower down on the house. Just as they got to the top of the hill there was an almighty roar from the pylons as a massive surge of power rushed from them. There was a moment’s silence and then there was a huge explosion. Fire was sent upwards into the sky and debris rained down in a two-mile radius. Jenny, Patrick, Slater and the other police officers were thrown by the explosion. Patrick threw himself on top of Jenny until the debris stopped raining down on them. The fire from the house burned for six hours, and then there was nothing left.
Epilogue
All in all, it was an open and shut case. The Newtown killer was identified by Hank Slater as being Richard James Hurst who had faked his own death with the intention of finding and killing his own son Patrick. In the end, Richard had ended up being killed in an explosion that was intended to kill Patrick Hurst and Jenny Phillips. Pretty simple really, or at least that was Slater’s story and he was sticking to it. Patrick got to keep his inheritance, which Slater was glad about, he thought that poor guy had been through enough. About two months after Patrick and Jenny had departed for six months of sun, sea and sexual adventure, Slater received a note from Patrick, thanking him for everything he had done. There was also a banker’s draft for one million pounds. Stuck to the draft was another note from Jenny which simply asked him
Isn’t it about time you retired?
Slater had laughed to himself and looked at the scarring from the pins that they had to put into his broken arm. He decided that she was right, that it was about time he hung up his hat for good. He banked the money the very next day and then decided to go on a tour of the English coast, something he had been dreaming of doing for years.
Patrick was in a s
tate of shock for a long time after the events of Layton House. To Jenny it seemed like his sense of humour had been dulled somewhat and that his mind was troubled by what had been happening. He had told her that he believed that the machine that his father had invented worked a little bit too well. Richard crawling after them after he had been cut into pieces had made him fear that the Pharmacon could not only cure disease it could cure death too. Only time would tell on that score.
On a quiet and almost unbearably hot night three months into their holiday Jenny suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. She had been dreaming about Layton House. Layton House was back to its former glory. It was perfect, untouched by human hands. She had been walking around it, looking for Patrick and wondering why he wasn’t there with her. She had gone to the front door and pulled it open and saw a shadow standing in front of her.
“Who are you?” she said, not with her lips but her mind.
“Tell me Jenny, now that the pylons have burned me up and taken me to my God for judgement. How did he know how to operate the Pharmacon?”
That was when she had snapped out of the dream. Now she was sat up in bed asking herself the same question.
How did he know? How did Patrick know how to overload the machine?
She looked over at Patrick. He was lying on his side, sleeping. Jenny’s heart began to pound painfully in her chest as fear began to crawl through her body.
He was smiling.
He was drooling.
Duet Page 35