I only spotted them when we came to a long hill, the pickup slowed down and I moved out to overtake. I managed it just in time to avoid a spot where the two-lane road went down to one. The Jeep wasn’t so lucky, but as I watched in the rear view mirror they pulled a risky overtaking maneuver just to keep me in sight. That done, they kept up the two hundred meter gap, even when I alternately slowed and speeded up to check I was right.
There wasn’t much I could do about it at that moment. The road went on in a straight line as far as the eye could see, with no turn-off ramps, and no parking areas. I turned the cruise control back on, lit another cigarette, and cranked up the guitar riffs on the radio.
The Jeep stayed right where it was, two hundred yards behind me, for the next hour and a half. The only time the gap changed was when I pulled over into a gas station near the town of Clarenville. They pulled in behind me and stopped at the far end of the parking area. No one got out of the vehicle, and I couldn’t see through its heavily tinted windows.
I thought about walking up and confronting them, but that would achieve little beyond another fight. I settled for filling up the tank, then heading inside the station for a coffee. I watched the pumps while I was there, but still no one left the Jeep. They didn’t fill up either, and I could only hope that they’d run out of gas before I ran out of patience.
I took my time over coffee. While I sat there, a people-carrier pulled up and a group entered the station. I kept watching the pumps, but my subconscious cottoned on to their conversation for me.
“So, did you have a good holiday,” one said.
“Yes,” another replied. “Ireland was very quaint and pretty. And the weather was better than we could have imagined. The flight home was strange though, what with all those youngsters in black leather. There must be a convention on somewhere.”
Looks like I should expect some more company.
Indeed, when I pulled out of the gas station ten minutes later, two vehicles pulled out behind me... the Jeep and a blue pick-up truck.
And I still don’t believe in coincidences.
They kept behind me, even after I turned off the main highway and took the Bonavista turn-off. A sign told me it was seventy kilometers to Port Rexton. If they knew where I was headed, my guess was they would make their move before that.
The road narrowed to a two-lane blacktop, and ruts and potholes made driving a trickier task. I switched off cruise and had to concentrate as we headed up the peninsula.
The country got wilder, and settlements even further apart. We passed a remote gas station, and I held out a small hope that they’d pull in, but they kept their place.
On we went in our little convoy, and I filled the Cruiser’s ashtray with a chain of butts.
Finally we reached a switchback that stretched for several kilometers along a high ridge, with no sign of any other traffic in either direction.
They closed up behind me, coming fast.
I put my foot down, but the Cruiser had been built for comfort, not speed. They nearly caught me on the first hill, and I crested it only ten meters ahead of the Jeep. I managed to maintain, and even slightly increase, the gap on the long downhill stretch.
The Cruiser started struggling immediately on the next hill.
It’s now or never.
The Jeep pulled up alongside me, and the pick-up took up close watch just behind my rear bumper.
I waved goodbye to my insurance and hit the brakes.
The pick-up slammed into the rear of the Cruiser hard, lifting the back wheels off the road. I immediately started going sideways. I hit the accelerator, but nothing happened.
Tires screeched on tarmac as the Jeep braked ahead of me. The pickup forced the Cruiser forward, into the side of the Jeep, and a second later the Cruiser was pushed off the side of the road. I hit a snow-bank, rolled over the top of it, then my world tumbled and rolled as gravity took over and I careered down a slope.
We hit a large stone and something in the Cruiser broke, at the same time as I left my seat and thwacked my head, hard, against the roof of the car. The seatbelt pulled tight at my neck, and something tore inside me near my left shoulder. Grayness crept in at the corners of my sight. I gripped the steering wheel tight. Someone screamed at the top of their voice. After a second I realized it was me.
A line of trees came up fast. I hit one straight on with a dull thud that reverberated through every bone in my body. The collision threw me forward, but the seatbelt locked just before my head hit the steering wheel.
The Cruiser fell over onto its side in slow motion and I was left dangling, only the seatbelt saving me from falling.
Everything went quiet.
I didn’t have time to stop and think. I managed to wrestle out of the belt and climb out the driver’s side window. I was just about to look around when the Elf’s laughter rang out nearby. I turned.
Five black figures came down the slope from the road. I looked to my left and right. The Cruiser had come up against a tight formation of conifers that stretched away in the distance in both directions. I was already knee deep in muddy slush with cold biting hard at my ankles. Running was not an option.
They stopped five yards from me.
A leather goods shop had done good business. They wore matching black duster coats over leather trousers and high biker’s boots. They could have passed for brothers above that as well; all of them sported long black tousled hair, and all had fashionably manicured stubble on cheeks and chins. They each had the same blank, swivel-eyed stare I’d seen on the Strongman in the airport washroom.
“I told you I’d find you,” the Elf’s voice said from mouth of the tall youth in the center of the five.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Let me guess. It’s the Van Helsing fan club outing, isn’t it?”
The Elf laughed as I took a crumpled Camel from my last packet, straightened it out and lit it.
“Nowhere for you to go this time Mr. Adams,” he said from the second figure on my right.
“That is a good trick. How many hands do you need for that one?”
“No more witticisms. Just hand it over,” the voice said from the leftmost figure.
“And what?” I said. “You’ll let me walk away? You know that’s no use to me. Not with Collins’ death on my card.”
“That was a mistake,” he said from the far right. “I only wanted to give him a wee fright.”
“And I suppose that lassie backstage was a mistake as well?”
“No,” the center figure laughed harshly. “That one I did mean.”
With that, they all took a step forward, coming for me.
I didn’t wait for them. I stepped to my right, moving towards the front of the turned over Cruiser. That way, they were going to have to come for me one at a time, two at the most.
As the first closed in on me I poked forward. The end of the cigarette hissed as it struck the youth’s left eye.
There was a howl of pain... from the Elf, not the youth.
Interesting.
I kicked the youth in the balls, as hard as I could manage, and smiled thinly at the whoof of pain that came from somewhere deep inside him.
The smile didn’t last long, as I’d made enough room for two to come at me. One grabbed me by the hair and turned me almost full around. I pulled away, leaving a tuft in his hand. I tossed my head back, fast, and was rewarded with another satisfying grunt of pain as bones broke. That one fell away, blood spurting on the snow from a mashed and broken nose.
The third was already on me. He grabbed me in a bear hug, and the Elf whispered.
“Got you now fucker.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I said. I closed my teeth round his left earlobe and chewed, tearing my head quickly to one side. More red spurted on the snow, and I felt a piece of meat in my mouth. I spat it in the eye of the youth, then head-butted him across the nose, and again. My forehead split, blood running into my eyes, but I had managed to loosen the hold on me. I sq
uirmed aside and got a lucky donkey punch in on the damaged ear. He went down, the voice of the Elf squealing. I stopped it with a kick to the head.
The head butts had left me dizzy. I could barely focus on the last two standing figures as they came for me.
“Still laughing?” I asked, trying to wipe away blood that threatened to blind me.
They came on silently. I tried to raise my hands to defend myself, but my vision blurred, and there was roaring in my ears.
The roaring suddenly became an explosion. The leftmost of the figures looked as if he’d jumped backwards, and the air filled with a fine red spray. There was another blast, and the head of the last man standing blew apart. Everything was red and noise.
I fell into a dark hole where all was quiet.
Seven
THE BIG SLEEP
I came to with the taste of whisky in my mouth. Somebody had leaned me against the side of a large 4X4, and somehow I’d got back up to the road. There was a bottle of whisky on the roof of the car beside my head, so I took hold of the opportunity. It took both hands, but I got most of it down my throat.
“Good. You’re back with us,” someone said. I turned and tried to focus. All I could see was a blurred figure. But I recognized the voice from the phone-call earlier. They’d found me... again.
“Mr. Arcand I presume?” My voice sounded as if it was coming from down a very long tunnel... a tunnel that had been wrapped in cotton wool.
“Don’t speak,” Arcand said. “You’ve got a concussion by the looks of things.”
“Thank fuck for that,” I said. “For a moment there I thought I was drunk.”
He laughed.
“And don’t worry about the other mess. We’ll get that cleaned up.”
“The Elf?”
“Gone... for now. But let’s have no more of that. We need to get you somewhere warm, and fast.”
He helped me in to the 4X4, having to move a shotgun aside so that I could get in. I took what was left of the whisky with me.
“The ranch is about twenty minutes away. And the road is going to be a bit bumpy. I’ll try to avoid the worst bits.”
In truth, I was past caring. I downed two more slugs of whisky and fell back into blackness.
I don’t remember much for a while after that, just a series of blurred thoughts and images; snatches of conversations from this case, and previous ones.
I wake up in a soft bed, feeling too warm, but when I try to push off the covers they’re too heavy to move. My head feels like someone is trying to break my skull with a large nutcracker. The pain is so tight and cold that I scream, but no sound comes. I lie there, sweating, thinking that dying might be a better alternative to this hell.
Someone leans over me.
“He’ll live,” a voice says.
“So, it was Fraser then?”
“Yes. He’s still on the black leather kick.”
The second voice is Arcand, but I don’t recognize the first.
“How many?”
“Five this time.”
“There will be more.”
“We can always hope so.”
“Does he have it?”
“It’s in his pocket.”
“So the job’s finished?”
“Not yet.”
“My boy isn’t my boy,” old lady Mason says.
“What do you mean... somebody is impersonating him?”
She gives me a pitying glare... the kind my Granny used to reserve for drunks and gamblers.
“Oh no, It’s him alright. It’s just not him.”
I stare at her blankly.
“In here...”she says, hitting her heart with her right fist, “Where it matters. It’s not him.”
The band steps up a gear and the circles spin ever faster.
Once more the Dubh Sithe comes to the front of the stage. The band takes the noise down so that he can be heard.
“We are of the dark,” he says. He raises his hands, and all light in the hall goes out save for one red spotlight that illuminates his face from below. It is an old trick, but still an effective one.
“Long ago there was a night when the pack ran free and hunger never came. Soon we will bring that time around again. Patience little brothers and sisters...patience.”
And I dream. Nightmares, always nightmares.
I wake with a start, knocking my ashtray over onto the carpet. It is just after 11:00 p.m. and the room sits in pitch darkness. I rise from the chair, and bend to lift the ashtray. And that’s when the creaky floorboard in my bedroom groans as someone steps on it.
I stand still, but the noise isn’t repeated. I step over to the door and put my hand on the handle...just as it turns from the other side.
I stop and hold my breath.
From far away I hear chanting, a guttural drone that shakes through my body as if I’m too close to a bass speaker at a concert. The brass handle goes cold in my palm, and when I do finally breathe mist forms in the air ahead of me.
Thud!
Something heavy strikes the door, then again, shaking the wood in its frame.
“I’ve called the police,” I shout, realizing even as I say it how lame it sounds.
The door shakes once more.
All goes quiet.
The door handle suddenly feels warm, and I know, I don’t know how, that the room beyond is empty. I turn the handle and stepped inside.
Mark Turner stands there.
“What did you do to me you bastard!”
I am in blackness...deep, thick black. There is no up or down, only a never-ending sea of velvet softness.
Somewhere, Doug screams. I make for the sound, aware that I can walk, but I don’t seem to be treading on anything solid.
I walk and walk and the darkness keeps on going, and the screaming doesn’t seem to be any closer. Then, hours or days or months later, I catch my first glimmer of light and head towards it.
Doug stands there, transfixed in a green flickering light that has no visible source. His eyes looks like black pits into hell as he turns to me.
“Help me!” he screams, and reaches out an arm. I move forward to take his hand, and he contorts.
It is Mark Turner who looks back at me.
“Help me!” he screams.
I am in bed, in my flat in Glasgow, having been woken by some un-repeated noise. The room is lit from outside by an orange street light that casts red shadows across the carpet. I’m in that state between awake and asleep. My imagination is running riot and my heart was ready to lurch at the next unexplained noise.
Something is climbing the stairs. Well, not climbing as much as clumping. The noise sounds like a wet fish being slapped on a fishmonger’s slab. The shocks caused by its movements are jolting the room, the red shadows quivering in the mirror, making the reflected room shake.
Whatever the thing may be it has climbed the stairs and is dragging itself across the landing towards my door.
I’m not worried, I know that it is a dream, vivid maybe but still a dream and that I’ll wake up before it gets too frightening.
My radio alarm switches itself on, “Don’t fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult echoes its bass line around and around. The door, behind my back and out of sight, opens slowly and IT comes into the room, bringing with it the smell of meat and blood.
Something takes hold of the duvet and pulls it away from me. I resist as hard as I can, pulling back and holding tightly but the pull is too much, dragging my body sideways off the bed. My shoulder hits the floor and forces my head round to face my attacker.
Mark Turner stares back at me.
“What the fuck did you do to me you bastard?”
Turner howls... a wail of pain that comes from deep inside him. He tries to tear at the hair belt at his waist, to rip it off, but his hands run like melting plastic, his skin growing darker, leathery.
I can only watch as he changes.
He isn’t a man anymore. His backbone curves, forcing his head
lower to the ground - a head that slowly stretches and elongates as long fangs burst from bloody gums. Talons slide from under his fingernails, slithering, viscid, like a wet fart.
His shirt splits with a loud rip, and new muscles strain tight against the man’s leather jacket. Thick bristles of hair force their way through his skin. His hands stretch as the talons grow longer and knuckles pop.
A long snout lifts in the air, sniffing.
George cradles the beast’s head.
“There, there,”he says, comforting it as if it were a baby.
I undo the clasps on the belt... and stand back suddenly. There has been no transition; no receding of hairs or shortening of tooth and claw. One second George is cradling a beast, the next, a naked, battered youth.
Mark Turner lies there, staring vacantly over George’s head, a single tear running down the side of his nose. A large burn lies the length of his jaw, red and weeping.
George makes to move, but the youth grabs his arm and pulls him closer. He cries, then looks straight at me.
“What the fuck did you do to me you bastard?”
Finally, after a while, things started to make sense.
I had to shake my head several times to banish the dreams completely. I was in bed in a room whose walls are lined in shiny coarse wood. Someone bent over me - someone was talking.
It was Arcand.
“Well, Mr. Adams, you’re awake at last. Don’t try to move too much, you’ll feel weak for a while. Just lie there and enjoy the hospitality. I’ll try to tell you what happened. Are you OK?”
I managed a laugh. “You mean apart from feeling like shit and wishing I was dead?”
Arcand laughed again.
For the first time I was able to focus on him. He was long and lean, thin almost to the point of being skinny. A flop of jet-black hair hung across his brow. His eyes, a bright piercing blue, looked straight at mine as we spoke.
“We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Mike.”
“Derek,” I replied, shaking his hand. I struggle to match his grip, then gave up. “But at the moment you can call me anything you like. I won’t be able to do anything about it. How long was I out?”
The Midnight Eye Files Collection Page 54