by Peter Laws
Lucy was about to fling herself to hug her but the thing that came out from under that pillow didn’t look like a human being any more. It had purple swollen eyes and a mouth dripping long strips of something horrible. Its shoulder was lined with gashes and its red ear was stretched and ragged where an earring had been torn out. And all Lucy could think of was that her mum was now the troll from ‘Billy Goats Gruff’, creaking its broken ribs over the edge of the bed and tiptoeing to the phone so it could finally call the police.
– Trip trap, trip trap.
Mum played dead, and it worked, Lucy thought. So I will, too.
– Trip trap.
She let her limbs go limp and felt the edge of the trough start to dig into her neck. Almost instantly she could feel the pressure of Ben’s hand easing on her head. And then he let go completely and she flopped up and out of the water. She slid hard, slumping onto the floor, sharp with straw.
For a second she literally had no idea if she had convinced him that she was dead, or if she actually was dead. The latter could have been true. She’d read in the back of a school textbook once that a severed head still sees for thirteen seconds after it’s been chopped off. She strained to feel her own heartbeat. Maybe she was witnessing the last few seconds of her life before her brain fully shut down.
But neither was right. She wasn’t dead. And Ben didn’t think she was, either.
Because he started to gently slap her on the side of the face. A fountain of dirty water erupted from her mouth and he clapped his hands together. It was muffled but she thought she could see his lips saying, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’
She couldn’t speak; her lungs were too busy trying to heave wheezing breath back into her body. It felt like someone was dragging heavy furniture directly across her nerve endings.
Then the water in her ears crackled and opened and she could hear the cows again. They were looking at her, idly chewing.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ben said.
You’re sorry? You’re SORRY? You think that covers it?
She could feel the physicality of her brain, pulsing against the skull as it racked up a thousand furious insults to say to him. But her mouth was impossibly weary and desperate for air, so she couldn’t articulate them. The closest she got to speech was a peel of her lips to say, I’ll kill you. But the sound never came out.
She squinted against the hanging bulb and suddenly noticed thousands of little red dots across Ben’s face. Especially up his neck, under his chin. She knew it was blood. Tiny spatters of it, which she hadn’t been able to see outside in the dark, but could see now under the light.
Then she looked at Mr. Kelly, lying on the floor. Earlier, she’d only seen his head through the crack in the barn. But now she saw the rest of his body.
She screamed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben nodded to the water trough. ‘I know I’m letting you down but I can’t finish it for you. I just can’t.’ He ran a trembling hand through his hair. ‘They’re coming for us.’
He looked frantically over his shoulder towards the barn doors and she realised that what she had thought was a ringing in her ear was actually a police siren.
Her heart started beating again. ‘Give yourself …’ she whispered, ‘up …’
‘What?’ he leant closer. ‘I can’t hear—’
‘If you’re sorry. You’ll give … yourself up,’ she said.
He shook his head and pushed his hands up and into her armpits. Both of his thumbs, she noticed, were drenched in drying blood.
‘What are you doing?’ The floor peeled away from her and she felt a new stab of panic. ‘Where are you taking—’
‘Shhhh.’ His left arm slipped all the way around her throat like a snake and he pressed her into a headlock.
By the time she felt the strength to kick out against him, he’d already grabbed a butcher’s knife from a black plastic bucket. He brought the blade higher.
She stared at it, as it came. Closer. Closer.
Petrified, she saw it come close enough to go out of focus.
The sudden touch of cold metal pressed hard and flat against the top ridge of her right cheek, right under her eye. She blinked once, and actually felt the lashes skim against the tip of the blade.
‘Lucy, don’t struggle. It’s dangerous.’
Petrified, she forced her eyelids wide open, terrified to blink.
‘I hate how this has turned out,’ he whispered.
She believed him, which made her even more afraid. ‘What are you going to do?’ Her voice now, an old woman’s.
‘I’m sorry, Lucy, this was supposed to be me helping you.’ With the knife wedged firmly under her eye and with wet lips pressed against her ear, he whispered, ‘But now you’re going to have to do something for me.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
‘Empty,’ Miller slammed the Healing Centre door back open in frustration.
Matt and Taylor rushed to join him on the gravel outside. ‘There’s been some sort of struggle in the office.’
Taylor nodded. ‘The glass to Chris’s office is smashed. And there’s … there’s blood in there.’
‘Shit, shit!’ Miller said. ‘Where the hell is he?’
‘Who cares?’ Matt shouted. ‘Where’s she?’
The field was flashing with the blue light of the patrol car. Matt’s gaze raced up the grass, up to the church, across to the falls, and especially along the shore of the lake, all the time fighting the fierce, acidic fire in his stomach. In passing, he caught a horrible sympathy in Miller’s eye.
Condolence.
It was the sort of breath-holding look a doctor gives to a mother whose kid just died on the operating table, the sort Matt had given to hundreds of mourners at funerals, to old ladies weeping in doctors’ waiting rooms after the test results.
Matt had to pull his eyes away from that desperate gaze, before it overtook him.
He felt God’s cruel lips pressing at his ear.
Little Lucy dead and gone.
And Killer Kelly carries on. Ha!
He could drop to his knees right now.
Taylor grabbed his radio to check where backup was and for a few hideous seconds Matt felt at an utter loss as to what to do next. But while his mind began to panic, his eyes kept on working. He suddenly caught sight of something over at the far edge of the lake.
‘Turn the lights off.’ Matt nodded toward the patrol car.
Taylor looked over, a little confused.
‘I said turn the bloody lights off!’
Miller reached into the car. The flashing blue, which shimmered across the lake, suddenly stopped and things turned black again.
But not everything.
‘Over there. Near the falls.’
A thin, solid line of yellow light stood horizontal against the shadows, near where the field reached the water.
‘It’s the cowshed,’ Miller said. ‘Someone’s in there.’
Before he’d even finished the sentence, they were inside the car with Miller at the wheel. The car heaved forward, spitting gravel as they went.
It took seconds to get there. Just seconds. Tyres tearing up the grass of the field as the black lake sped past. But it was enough time for the swing of the headlights to catch something that solidified everything. Up until now, Matt could still have this notion: that Lucy had realised how stupid she was being and had just headed home. But the moment he saw her bicycle wedged in the dirt, that hope fell away.
He couldn’t take his eyes off it: her Apollo Endeavour Mountain Bike. He could picture him and her trying to fit it into the boot at Halfords car park when they bought it last year, Lucy barking at him that he was going to bend the handlebars.
He thought he might vomit.
The car skidded to a stop. Matt flung the door open so hard that it bounced on its hinge and almost sprang back against him, crushing his leg.
Cooper’s Force roared into the lake, louder and more threatening than any other waterfall in the history of
the world.
‘Ben!’ Matt called out as they moved towards the glowing yellow slit of the barn door. ‘It’s over now. The police are here. You don’t have to do this any more.’
They waited for an answer.
They got nothing.
‘Listen. I’m going to open the door now, okay?’
The line of light was maybe an inch wide so he curled the tip of his fox-killing shoe into the crack in the door and slowly creaked it towards him. Electric light crept up his body like quicksand. Up and around his legs, up his waist, up to his chest and finally over his face until he was squinting his eyes and stepping into the brightly lit barn. He blinked a few times.
Once they all understood what they were seeing, the reactions came. Taylor froze and the stale coffee breath from his lungs blew out all at once. Miller put a fist across his mouth and started to back away.
Ben wasn’t there. And neither was Lucy, from the looks of it.
But Chris Kelly was. Or rather, most of him.
He was stretched out in a wet puddle of dark blood on a huge sheet of blue polythene. He lay on his stomach, face snapped to the side. One of his legs was completely missing and was now seeping. Matt could see the tip of something dark and glistening in a tin metal bath just next to the plastic.
His other leg was still attached but a hacksaw held by some invisible hand was stuck hard in the groove, just under the buttock, wedged into bone. The handle was sticking up in the air in the same way a lumberjack might leave a saw stuck in a log when he went on a break.
The Reverend Chris Kelly, downsized for the pig furnace. His own father.
‘Lucy?’ Matt said, staggering forwards, speaking in nothing more than a whimper. He said it again, louder. ‘Lucy?’
At the sound of his voice the cows swung up their heads. They were moaning and shouting as if Matt was intruding and spoiling their fun. He hated them for it.
‘Matt!’ Taylor’s shout came suddenly from outside the barn. ‘Bloody hell, Matt, get out here.’
By the time he joined Miller and Taylor outside he could already hear the shouting. It echoed as if it was coming from everywhere at once. But he could see it was actually from only one place. He craned his neck to look up at the pounding water of the falls, to the very top where he picked out a shape in the moonlight.
Two figures tangled together, as if they were one person. Ben Kelly and Lucy Hunter, struggling at the very edge of the ridge. The leaping point Miller said suicides normally chose to jump from. The two shapes were grappling against each other, stumbling towards the edge.
A logical chip in his brain promptly sent a message down to his heart to say, it’s over. All you need to decide now is if you’re going to keep your eyes open or closed when she hits the water.
But the weird acoustics of the place meant that words as well as images were tumbling down those falls, pulsing around them even over the roar. And the things he could hear were odd and unexpected.
It was Ben.
And he was shouting, pleading, begging her. ‘Lucy. Do it. For God’s sake. Push me over!’
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
The roar of falling water shook the night air as Matt ran across grass that led to the ridge of Cooper’s Force. There were picnic benches and plastic litter bins shaped like huge squirrels. He even spotted the exact patch of grass they’d all sat on the other day when they came up here to admire the view.
But it all looked so different up here, in the dark.
There was a wind from the north, which shook the trees on the other side of the river up here. The side where Isabel Dawson had wept and run and jumped through barbed wire. Just so she might learn the true meaning of entropy.
But Lucy and Ben were on this side, which had no barrier at all. They were standing horribly close to the edge, a few feet from where the river rolled over the side. The churning spray in the air made it look like a swarm of flies was constantly at Ben’s side. He had Lucy by the wrist. One sharp yank would send her over the side.
A knife glinted in Ben’s other hand.
Matt slowed down, panting, and started to walk slowly. He raised his hands to show he had no weapons.
‘Who’s there?’ Ben said, squinting into the darkness.
‘It’s Matthew Hunter.’ He started waving. ‘I’m over here. Just by the river.’
Ben strained his eyes. Then he saw Matt emerge from the shadows. ‘Mr Hunter.’ He looked … relieved. Pleased.
‘I can’t really hear you with the water. Let me come just a little closer, okay?’
Finally, Matt could make out Lucy’s face. The shadows were painting her as much, much older. Her eyes bulged at the sight of him and she opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t. Her face just twisted into a tight ball of tears.
Seeing her like that made the clouds slow down and the wind stop. What would it feel like for her if the knife went in, if she went over? What sort of terror would race through her body as her hair fluttered in the wind? He was almost floored by his fear for her.
‘What you did for the fox,’ Ben called over. ‘That was a beautiful thing.’
Lucy closed her eyes.
‘It was struggling,’ Ben said. ‘And you released it.’
Matt waited before answering, ‘Yes. I did.’
Ben’s shoulders seemed to relax. ‘I knew you’d understand. I knew it was right Dad brought you here. I dug it up and put Nicola’s tooth in it.’
‘Why?’
‘So everyone would know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That they were … the same. The fox, the girls. They were the same … And I want people to know that we’re the same, too. Things were dying, so we set them free. And they’re in paradise now because of us. That’s where Nicola is. That’s where Tabitha is … Paradise. God’s promise.’
‘The rainbows,’ Matt said, closing his eyes.
‘Exactly. I knew you’d understand them.’
Matt gave a weary shrug. ‘I do now.’
In the book of Genesis, God supposedly made the first ever rainbow in the sky as a promise to the world. It meant that after the Great Flood, he would never, ever do it again. The idea of that always used to unsettle Matt. Like God was this abusive partner, insisting he’d be ‘better’ in the future. But none the less, a rainbow meant that the time for water was over.
‘I sent them to you so you’d know. That they’re healed now. No more suffering or pain, no more being under. At first I just hoped you’d understand, but after the fox … well I knew then, didn’t I? That we are exactly the same, you and me. We find the dying and we give them life.’
‘By killing them …’ It was almost impossible, but Matt tried to speak as calmly as he could. ‘How about you step away from the ledge? Just a few feet. Then we can talk.’
‘When I die you’ll be able to tell the world that I was helping those girls. Read them the texts and the emails. I was releasing them. I thought that maybe you could teach about me in your classes. Write a book, maybe. I think I could inspire people.’
Matt took another slow step closer. ‘What are you going to do?’
There was about twenty feet between them now but they still had to shout to be heard over the roaring water.
Lucy suddenly spoke. ‘He wants me to push him over.’
‘Just a little nudge,’ Ben nodded. ‘And then she can come to you.’ He said it as if it was the simplest favour in the world. Just the lend of a pencil, a push on a swing. Faint clouds hovered above them, still and false-looking against the full stretch of Hobbs Hill countryside.
Miller and Taylor’s footsteps suddenly came pounding along the grass from behind. Matt quickly held up his hand. ‘Wait. Give us some space.’
They stopped and held back.
‘Alright, Ben. Let her go.’
‘I need her to push me. I can’t jump.’
‘I know you can’t.’
‘It’s not that I’m scared.’
‘Oh, I know you’re
not scared. Because death doesn’t scare you, does it?’
‘No.’ He smiled at Matt, as though there was finally somebody who got him. ‘It doesn’t scare me at all.’
‘Because death’s got no victory, has it? It’s got no sting,’ Matt took another step. ‘But it’s what comes after death. Now that’s a different story …’
Ben turned his head a little, to look back over the edge. ‘I can’t jump.’
‘I know. Because suicides go to hell, don’t they? They all do.’
For the first time, Ben looked panicked. ‘I can’t go there, Mr Hunter. I just can’t. I won’t. Not after all I’ve done. I wouldn’t belong … in hell. I belong with my mum and dad. And with the girls I’ve helped.’
‘But if you jump you might as well be throwing yourself into the lake of fire.’
‘So I’ll make her push me. Then it won’t be suicide at all…’ Ben’s lips twisted in desperation. He shook his head and his attention flipped to Lucy. Yanking at her wrist and pulling her a little closer to the edge. ‘Listen, Lucy. Just think of me as your real dad. I’m Eddie. You told me how bad he was. How you want to kill him.’
Matt took another slow step forwards.
‘Think of him when you push me. And for God’s sake hurry.’ Ben’s eyes flicked to the rushing river next to Matt. Something had caught his eye, something in the hurtling water. But when Matt looked there was nothing there.
‘Lucy. Do it. And when I go over, it’ll be him going over. It’s the only way your nightmares are going to stop. So push. Push him! Push!’
‘Get your hands off me.’ She dragged herself away from him so he gripped her harder and raised the knife.
Ben’s eyes darted to the river again but this time when he looked at the water they grew wider. And he seemed to gulp in a breath. His chest filled out and, when Ben finally spoke, it was someone else’s voice that they heard. ‘Push him over, you dirty bitch. Do it. Push him or I swear to Christ I’ll cut your fuckin’ eye out. Now do it!’
Lucy screamed as Ben yanked her towards the edge.
She’s going over.
‘Verecundus!’ Matt shouted.