by Tim Lebbon
Daddy! the voice shrieked, and Tom winced as if he had been punched. Daddy is here! With me! He’s here in these chains, and Mummy and my little brother, all dead now, with—
“With their heads cut off.”
Natasha was silent for a few seconds, and Tom heard her sobbing again. They wanted me to be alive. Down here, alive, with all the crawling things. She sounded so vulnerable, so small, such a child.
“They?”
There’s time to tell . . . but not too much. Not now. No time now!
Tom looked back over his shoulder at the mound, the small woods where he had found the crawlspace beneath the fence, and he wondered how he could explain this new madness to Jo. He had always been the strong one, the one to comfort her when tears came and memories shadowed the present. Now, covered in mud and with the stench of old corpses on his skin, how could he possibly explain?
In the dusky light he saw someone climbing the fence.
It’s him! Mister Wolf! Help me, please, don’t let him put me back in!
Tom tried to imagine being buried alive, thrown down into the pit with all those bodies, surrounded by dead family. But the thought that galvanised him into action was the certainty that if he were discovered, he would never get away from here. He had uncovered an horrendous crime, a monstrous lie. Madness or no madness, he had to flee.
And whether Natasha was real or a made-up presence in his mind, she was about to take control.
* * *
Cole parked a hundred feet behind the other car. He remained in his Jeep for a few minutes, lights off, scanning the surrounding area for any signs that he was being observed. He kept reminding himself that this was a fifty-five year old office worker he was following, but caution had always been his way. It had saved his life more than once and now, so close to this place, his hackles were up.
He had not been here for ten years.
He stepped from the Jeep, shut the door quietly and rested one hand on the pistol in his coat pocket. Day was slipping into dusk, and he wanted to investigate Roberts’ car before full darkness fell. This was a bad time of day to be sneaking around with one hand on his .45 . . . but yet again, he reminded himself of whom he was following. Roberts was hardly going to be perched on a hillside with the cross-hairs of a .30-30 centred on the back of Cole’s head.
Still . . .
Glancing left and right, Cole made his way quickly to the parked car. He approached from the passenger side, keeping well away from the vehicle, closing in only when he was certain it was empty. He tried the door. Roberts had left the car unlocked. Other things on his mind.
Yeah, his dead son.
Cole shook his head. There was no time for pity.
He climbed the bank and stood at the security fence, staring out across the Plain. Although he had not been here since that fateful day ten years before, he could still remember every detail about this place, every point of reference that would lead him to where the bodies were buried. To his right lay the small woods, to his left in the distance a slight hill was already merging with the darkness, and in front of him, somewhere past the fence, would be the rock shaped like a rugby ball standing on end. He sniffed the air and remembered the scent of the moors. He closed his eyes briefly and heard the familiar silence. Even the feel of the place on his skin and in his guts was something he still understood so well; that gravity, that sense of the raw power of nature sleeping here. He was back, and it felt as though he had never been away, as if every day of the intervening ten years had been wiped from existence. God knew he had lived that day in his nightmares enough times to make it last forever.
“God help me now,” he muttered. “God help us all.” He scanned the Plain, zeroing in on the approximate location of the grave . . . and there was movement. He looked to the side of the shape and saw it stand and walk, though whether it was toward or away from him he could not tell.
Now, suddenly, dusk would become his friend.
He set about climbing the unclimbable fence. Roberts had got in somehow – cut through the steel, found a hole – but Cole had no time to search for his point of entry. He wanted this to be quick and easy, no long chase across the moors, just a brief sprint and a bullet to the back of the head. Though the prospect of killing again filled him with a sense of emptiness, it would not be the first time he had buried people out here.
Cole had spent a lot of his youth climbing mountains. Now he used techniques he had learned years ago to brace himself against the gap between two fence uprights – toes and fingers pulling and pushing in opposite directions, ankles and wrists burning, fingers and toes cramping – and slowly, gritting his teeth, he moved higher. Once he was within reach of the curved rails atop the fence he swung one foot up and hooked it behind a rail, pulling himself up and over. He dropped down on the other side and rolled, bringing the pistol out of his pocket and kneeling in one movement.
This low down he could see Roberts’ shadow against the horizon. If he kept low enough he would be able to approach in this way, ensuring that he himself was not seen until the last moment. If Cole was very lucky – and very quiet – he would be able to shoot the guy without him even knowing what had happened. That would be best for both of them.
Then, away from here as fast as fucking possible. Even being this close to the grave Cole’s skin was crawling.
Can she get out? he thought. But no, of course not, not after so long. She’d be dead down there. Or if not dead, close enough. But she’s still there. Still so close. And those others, their heads gone, but did we really know what we were doing? Did we?
“Fuck it,” Cole muttered. Bent low, he hurried toward Roberts.
He moved quickly across the Plain, passing the rock shaped like a rugby ball, not needing it now because he could still see the movement of his target. In maybe five minutes he would come close enough to risk a shot, but between now and then he had to keep his eye on Roberts. There was still an hour until the sunlight bled away completely – and tonight, with no cloud cover, there would be moon and starlight – but once he lost that shadow it would be difficult to find again. The need to get away from here was pressing on him already, trying to turn him and urge him back to the road. Every step he took closer to the grave felt heavier, as if he were running into air growing thicker by the second.
And he remained alert for any whispers in his mind.
Of them all, Natasha had been the one most adept at touching minds. Just a touch, a feel, a nudge, never anything more, but enough to know that she was there. Her psychic fingers were vile. It was like opening your mind to a sewer exhaust.
Even if she is still alive, she won’t know we’re here.
In his mind, in the underground where he relegated those memories he was desperate to forget, something stirred. He ran through the streets above, dodging from idea to idea as he neared the central hub of his consciousness, that place where his whole life converged and found meaning. His concentration was complete, and the manhole covers and tunnel entrances were well sealed by his determination to do what was right. Each day he prayed to God, and each night when he slept the memories leaked out. Another prayer on waking usually put them back down. But now there were signs of life down there, an echo awoken from distant memory, a voice that stalked the tunnels and dark places, barely a whisper as yet but growing, growing, each echo from mossy walls or crumbling brick ceilings increasing rather than diminishing in strength.
Eventually he heard the words: What’s the time, Mister Wolf?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Cole whispered as he ran. He knew that he should be utterly silent, that he was acting like an amateur. But there was something he had to cover up, a rising sound inside him that needed camouflaging. Was that her, actually talking in his mind, or had he imagined it? So he whispered while he ran, and his underground sang louder with the voice that he had prayed he would never hear again.
* * *
The smell told Cole that he was nearing the grave. It was damp, rich, a cloying sw
eetness, the stench of old rot and buried secrets laid bare. He came to an abrupt halt and knelt down, sniffed again, then started to breathe through his mouth. The whole area felt corrupt. The water soaking into the knee of his jeans could be infused with chemicals from their rotten bodies, and the air was rich with their stench. He was breathing in gases from their exposed corpses. Even the deepening darkness was slick and greasy.
He’s opened the grave!
He had never expected it of him. He hadn’t even thought that Roberts would find the grave’s location; it had been chosen because it was away from any real point of reference, just another nowhere in a Plain of many such nowheres. But Cole now knew that this had already gone much farther than he could have guessed, and for the first time since killing King he felt anger at him, not pity.
Stupid fuck! What was it with him? Why the hell start talking after so long?
Cole wanted so much to turn and run, but his whole life was centred on this place and what had happened here. He had always hoped and prayed that he would never have cause to return. He had never picked up the trail of the escaped berserkers, but he had tried continuously, never giving in. Not like the Army. Their shunning of their responsibilities had been the main reason for his leaving and pursuing the escapees on his own. He was not unrealistic, nor felt himself superior, but he saw himself as the Army’s conscience. The fact that he was the only person who knew of his mission did not concern him in the least.
Perhaps one day when this was all over, he would write his memoirs. Get some people into trouble, topple a government. Perhaps one day.
Cole took in a huge breath and, letting it out slowly, stood and ran toward the grave. He remained bent low, the .45 held tight in both hands. His footfalls were gentle and soft on the springy ground, yet to his ears he sounded like a crippled bull. As he neared where he judged the grave to be – and as the smells grew stronger, the sense of foreboding richer and slick as blood – the voice burst up from his mental underground, echoing through his head and driving him to his knees.
Too late, Mister Wolf! You can huff and puff, but I’m not home anymore!
Cole hissed and cursed trying desperately not to cry out. So loud! So powerful! He lowered the gun and realised only then what he was kneeling beside.
The first body was close enough to touch. It wore the remnants of military fatigues, and he could just see the glint of its exposed and cleaned dog tags. There were others next to it, laid out in a long, uneven line, on their sides or fronts or backs, limbs missing here and there, heads shorn from necks . . . and he had known these men. He reached out and touched the cool, slick skull of the body closest to him. Rich? he thought. Gareth? Jos? He had hoped to never see them again.
The girl had shouted at him, mocked him—
—and so strong, so alive!—
—but it could easily be a ruse to send him away. He had to know for sure. He stood and walked the line, counting as he went, and when he came to the grave he jumped down into the hollow and kicked the scattered bones and clothing. He knew whose remains he was rooting amongst now, and he bore them no respect. He kicked and stamped, glad to crush their deformities beneath his heels.
The girl was not here. Cole shook his head, moaning. No chains, no bones, no sign of her at all.
One skull stared up at him, distended jaws hanging open as if preparing to laugh.
“I see your daddy,” he said, “and I’m going to give him another one.” Whether or not the girl sensed his words, Cole thoroughly enjoyed putting a bullet through the empty skull. It exploded in a shower of brittle bone; nothing moist in there now, nothing preserved. Only in her. Of all the stupid things to do . . .
He climbed from the hole and set off in pursuit.
* * *
Cole had been the one to insist that the berserker girl Natasha should be alive when they buried her.
They had shot down the father and son with silver bullets, held their thrashing bodies while others cut off their heads with chainsaws, and the little girl had stood and watched and cried just like a normal child. They all knew her by then – knew what she was – but still some of the soldiers had shown signs of pity. One of them even moved toward her, swinging his SA80 onto his shoulder and holding out his hands to pick her up. Natasha raised her head and stared at him with red-rimmed eyes, and it was Cole who saw the grin beneath the tears. She opened her mouth to say thank you, and to bite, and Cole put a silver bullet in her shoulder.
She fell back into the heather, thrashing, clawing at herself as silver burned into her flesh. Her tears turned to screams. The man standing before her seemed frozen to the spot and Cole had to grab him and spin him around, shouting into his face to bring him to his senses.
“King! Don’t let her get to you! Not now, not after all this! The others have gotten away, and we’ve been told to see to these, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“But—” King said.
“No buts. fucking buts! We should have buried these things long before now, and you know it!” Still the girl was screeching like a wounded pig in need of the coup de grace. But Cole suddenly knew that he would not be the one to deliver it, and neither would any of the men here. There was something better they could do for the little bitch. Something much more effective. More poetic.No
They wrapped her in chains and secured them to the corpses of her parents and brother. It took six men to push the tangled bundle of living and dead into the hole they had dug. The three severed heads were thrown in after them, and Cole himself went down to make sure the chains were secure.
“Hey, Mister Wolf!” the girl shouted, and Cole winced back at the fury in her voice.
“What is it, Natasha?” he said.
“Please let me out, Mister Wolf! Please . . . I promise I’ll be good.” Her voice was suddenly weak, slurred, the silver like acid in her veins.
“Good like your friends? ‘Good’ like Sophia and Lane?”
“That was them, not us! My mummy and daddy never did anything like that, never. We always just did what we were told.”
“Is that all you did, Natasha?”
“Well . . .” her voice trailed off, sly and cool. “Well, maybe when we were taken away, sometimes we enjoyed ourselves a little . . . But never anything bad here.” She was slurring again, doing the little-girl act and adding her own pain to make it more realistic.
“I have my orders,” Cole said, starting to climb from the hole.
“Kill me!” Natasha pleaded, quieter. “A silver bullet in the head. My mummy . . . Daddy . . . my brother Peter! Why did you do that to them? Please let me be with them. Mister Wolf!”Please,
Cole stood on the lip of the hole and glared at his men. They were terrified, enraged, pumped up by the day of violence. They had all seen so much – blood spilled, friends killed, chaos visiting the normally ordered atmosphere of Porton Down and polluting it forever – that they seemed to be dazed, stunned by the sudden visitation of death that none of them had ever dreamed they would witness. The autumn sun blazed down as if to burn the sights from their minds, but they would always remember this, all of them. They looked at Cole as if he could offer them answers.
He looked at the bodies piled in the back of the wagon. Men he had known, men who had been his friends. Flesh ripped from their bones. Bones chewed and broken. Skulls crushed. And not a bullet hole or knife wound among them.
He turned back to the grave and looked down into Natasha’s pleading, pained eyes. She was as ugly and obscene as she had always been, and the tears inspired no pity in Cole. No pity at all. They only fuelled the hatred that had been growing in him for years.
“You will be with them, Natasha. Always.”
“Fuck you, Mister Wolf!” The words were shocking coming from such a young girl, such rage in a child’s voice. But, of course, Cole knew that she was no ordinary girl. She was a monster.
“Bury them,” he said.
“I’ll see you again,” Natasha whispered as Cole turn
ed and walked away. The words were a knife in his back, a promise that would haunt him forever.
As his men piled in the broken bodies of their friends and comrades, it took a long time for Natasha’s screams to fade away to nothing.
* * *
Sometimes, years later when he woke up sweating and shaking and feeling malevolent memories scurrying back into the underground depths of his mind, Cole wondered whether Natasha was still screaming, and what the mud tasted like in her mouth, and whether she would ever fall completely silent.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tom ducked down when he heard the single gunshot, dropping the body and falling to his hands and knees.
Shooting at me!
He turned and tried to see back the way he had come. But though he could still make out land from sky, it was now too dusky to discern any true detail on the landscape. Perhaps if it were daylight the grave would still be in sight from here, or maybe the contours of the land had already hidden it away. Either way, the gun had sounded too far away to be firing at him.
Not that he had ever been shot at before.
He almost laughed, but it came out as a sob. What if he finds me and kills me? What will happen to Jo then? What will people think of me, found out here with a bullet in my skull and a dead little girl in my arms?
They wouldn’t find us, the girl’s voice muttered in his mind. Mister Wolf would put us back in the hole with my mummy and daddy and brother.
Tom gathered up the body once again, trying to pile the chains on top so that he could lift them all as one. The load was heavy, and he did not think he would be able to move very far like this. Even as a young man he would have found it difficult. Now older, having spent an afternoon digging and pulling out corpse after corpse from that hole, he was almost at the end of his reserves of strength.