Darkness Demands

by Simon Clark

  Mary Thorp looked around the kitchen as if she didn't even know her own home. Then she fastened her eyes on the policewoman. They were strangely glittery. Oh God, here it comes-she'd heard Spivey's tactless drivel.

  "Susan?"

  "Yes, Mary?"

  "They're going to cut him open, aren't they?"

  "Mary, sit down, you-"

  "They're going to cut my little boy…"

  "Don't think about that now." The policewoman's voice was soothing. "Look, you go-"

  "Autopsy… that's what it's called, isn't it?"

  Mary Thorp's voice stayed low, completely controlled. No sobbing. No shaking. No hysterics. Policewoman Susan Derry knew there was a hell of a lot of pent up emotion inside the woman. She sensed it building like a volcano ready to rip its top. The policewoman steeled herself, ready for the outburst of emotion to come. She'd seen it before. But the violence of that release would still be shocking.

  "Autopsy…" The woman repeated the unfamiliar word. "Autopsy… autopsy. It won't hurt him will it, when they cut?"

  The policewoman shook her head.

  "No, of course it wouldn't, would it?" Mary Thorp licked her lips. They were chapped and sore looking. "It can't hurt him, because he's dead. And it's my fault." She locked her eyes onto those of the policewoman. "Did you know that I could have stopped Liam being killed?"

  "It's not your fault, Mary."

  "You don't know what really happened? When the letter came…"

  "What letter?"

  "The letter I found under the stone outside." Mary Thorp nodded toward the door. "I should have done what the letter told me to do."

  "This letter was from Joe Budgen?"

  "No, of course not." She sounded irritated as if asked an absurd question. "It was the start of the letters again. It's happened before. Ask anyone. But I ignored it. I thought it was kids playing stupid tricks… I just threw it away. And when another came I did the same. And it wasn't-"

  "Mary, sit down," the policewoman said. Here comes the dam burst. She checked that the box of tissues were nearby. They were. But if anything, before the tears there might come anger. She also did a quick take of the kitchen to make sure there were no knives or heavy objects Mary might grab.

  But Mary Thorp continued in that rapid whisper. "Kids and their tricks. We've seen it all before. Stones thrown at the windows, dog shit through the front door. That's when everyone thought Stevo had snitched on Joe, but that wasn't true. So when the letters started I thought it was just more of the same. Just kids pissing us about. But what I should have done is take that chocolate straight up to- "

  "Chocolate?"

  "The letter told me to take chocolate up to the cemetery and leave it on the grave."

  "Mary, sorry, I don't understand. What grave?"

  "Jess Bowen's. Oh, you're not local, then? Otherwise you'd know. It's famous round here. But if I'd just done what the letter said… if I'd left the chocolate up there… everything would be all right. None of this would have happened. Liam would still be up in his bed, fast asleep… oh God… God, God, God, God." She rocked now, her hand to her mouth. But there were no tears.

  "Mary, take it easy. Here, sit down."

  Mary did as she was told. But now something had loosened inside of her. She continued speaking-words joining seamlessly together. "See, just one lousy bar of chocolate. All I had to do was what the letter said. None of this would have happened. Everything would have been all right; but now he's having that autopsy done to him; they won't hurt him, will they? I couldn't bear it if I thought they were hurting him."

  "They'll look after Liam, Mary."

  "If you get one of those letters, Susan. And-and it's got those demands. You do everything it asks. Everything. Because it'll tear your life apart if you don't."

  The policeman came to the doorway. He caught the policewoman's eye and tilted his head by way of a question. She went across to her colleague.

  He whispered, "What's she been saying?"

  The policewoman kept her voice low so Mary wouldn't hear. "Nothing that makes sense. If you ask me she's completely out of it."

  "Did the Doc give her any knock-out drops?"

  "He did. Not that they've had any effect."

  "Put her to bed anyway."

  "Keith, she doesn't look like she's ready to sleep yet, does she?"

  "She might, once she's in bed."

  "All right then." She sighed, relenting. "But I'll stay near her bedroom where I can keep an eye on her."

  "Pizza?"

  "Show some respect, Keith. For just once in your life."

  "I'll take that as a 'no' then, shall I?"

  3

  "Careful, Val, the garlic bread's hot."

  "Oh, I'm ready for this."

  "See, I told you that good honest toil on the land would give you an appetite."

  "It's toning up my thigh muscles, too."

  "Really? Let me feel."

  "John Newton, that isn't thigh muscle."

  "Nowhere near?"

  "No."

  "You'll have to give me a conducted tour of your body later."

  "John, stop it." She giggled.

  "Show me every nook and cranny."

  "Shh… Paul will hear."

  "No, he won't. He's watching something unsavory on television in his bedroom."

  "If you don't move your hand I'll scream."

  "Yell your face off, my dear, because here in the Water Mill no one can hear you scream." He'd switched on the Vincent Price impression again. "Now come here. I want to suck your neck."

  "You try and I'll chuck your garlic bread out the window."

  "All right then, I surrender. Wine?"

  "Need you ask?"

  John filled her glass. This was one of his real pleasures of the day. A late supper, with Elizabeth asleep in bed and Paul ready to turn in for the night. The time was approaching eleven. Outside, a moon showed its face through the trees, turning the stream into a vein of glittering silver.

  As was their habit, they'd taken scatter cushions across to the observation window set in the floor above the millrace. Below them, waters tumbled in a chaotic mix of dazzling whites and glistening blacks. As always there was something deeply mysterious about that water. How it raced through the tunnel beneath the house to be briefly caught by spotlights set in the tunnel wall. John sat, his upper half supported on one elbow. Although he couldn't hear the roar of the torrent he could feel its vibration tickle up through his bones. There, he made a deal with himself after the hectic (and completely unproductive day). He'd knuckle down early tomorrow and finish Chapter 1. If inspiration really caught hold he might crack on with the outline, too. Then he could have the book package to his agent ahead of schedule.

  He pushed thoughts of the book aside. Val sat cross-legged on the glass in shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair was still shower wet and she looked incredibly desirable to John as he sipped his wine. If it weren't for supper on the plates he'd be tempted to suggest an early night.

  "At least Elizabeth is sleeping," Val said. "I thought her chin would be sore after the fall."

  "She's made of tough stuff."

  "Mmm, but you should see the graze across her chest, too. She must have been going way too fast."

  "Maybe she'll learn from it. I was nearly a basket case after I found her. Tomato?"

  "Please."

  He speared a slice and slipped it onto her plate. "My nerves can't take any more of Elizabeth's spills… oops."

  "Or any of your spills. That red wine better not reach my best new rug."

  "Don't worry. I'll mop it up."

  As Val sat eating her garlic bread John pressed a piece of kitchen tissue to the splash of red wine on the millrace glass. Immediately the absorbent tissue sucked the wine from its surface. He finished off by rubbing the glass clean.

  "There. Not a mark."

  As he rubbed he happened to look down into the water.

  White foam appeared to battle with the dark
water for domination of the observation chamber below. As he looked he saw something solid surge up out of the water. It stood proud of the foam, gleaming beneath the spotlights.

  "Val."

  "Hmm?"

  "You've missed it."

  "Missed what?"

  He'd only seen it for a second, but now he found his heart beating hard. His palms had grown clammy; his fingers stuck to the glass as perspiration oozed. Which was a ridiculous reaction really. Because all he had seen was a face.

  And that face, with the wide eyes, and the mouth stretched into a surprised O, was printed on the side of Elizabeth's ball. The one that had been snatched by the stream earlier in the day and sent plunging under the house. Where no doubt it had been caught in the tunnel before eventually working loose to bob up into the observation chamber right under his nose. He took a swallow of wine. His movements were jerky and the rim of the glass clicked against his teeth.

  That's what he had seen-just the ball. It had to be the ball because it couldn't be anything else, could it? OK, so his imagination had exaggerated the image into a face with colossal eyes that bulged at him; the whites of those eyes riddled with purple veins as fat as earthworms… yet still his heart hammered against his ribs just as if he'd had the shock of his life.

  "Go on then, John, don't keep me in suspense," Val said. "What did you see?"

  "Incredible… it was Elizabeth's ball. It must have been caught on some obstruction in the tunnel."

  Val popped an olive into her mouth. "Then with luck it might turn up downstream in the morning."

  "It might," he agreed.

  Then once more he found his attention drawn back to the window set in the floor. A window that was like a single great eye that gazed into the heart of some dark and secret place.

  4

  After dark the Necropolis becomes a vast and lonely wilderness. Decades of neglect have left it overgrown with hogweed, nettles, hemlock and grass that reach to your elbows.

  Through this wilderness Mary Thorp pushed forward into the depths of the cemetery.

  Monuments to eighty thousand dead marched away beneath the trees with military precision. While a bone white moon revealed the heads of stone angels and cherubs. There were slabs engraved with names, dates, poetry; statements of how the occupants of graves died: burnt up by fever… drowned by accident… succumbed to influenza…

  To Mary Thorp the gravestones, the trees, the cemetery, the whole world was nothing but a meaningless blur. She walked in her nightdress, barefoot, her hair tumbling in wild disorder. Her bare legs had been stung a dozen times by nettles. Broken glass littered the ground. A cut that ran from her big toe to heel oozed with blood. She noticed none of that.

  Mary walked as if she was asleep. Her eyes glassy. No expression on her face. In one hand she held a carrier bag. One of the few things she was conscious of was the weight of the bar of chocolate in the bottom of it. I'm here… I brought you what you want… now make everything right again. Bring my baby back to me…

  Trees broke the moonlight, so it looked like a thousand laser beams shone down. They picked out chunks of headstone and crumbling urns. A dog's skull in the grass glowed dazzling white. In one moonbeam her bloody footprint shone a luscious strawberry red.

  She cut through the labyrinth that formed the Vale Of Tears. The iron doors to the tombs all locked tight against the outside world. Tonight these ghostly houses of the dead lay in absolute silence. She walked on unafraid. Being alone in the cemetery tonight didn't affect her any more than the nettle stings and gash in her foot. Her baby was all that mattered now. If only she could leave that bar of chocolate on the grave… just as the letter demanded… she was convinced she could turn back time. She knew in her heart of hearts that she would return home to find the two cops vanished from the kitchen. And she would find Liam asleep in his cot.

  There was a power in this cemetery that could do just that. It had the power to create as well as to destroy.

  Hold onto that thought, Mary, she told herself. Hold it tight.

  She passed beneath the stone archway, and climbed the slope out of the Vale of Tears. Graffiti covered the huge wall that held back the hillside to form a sheer cliff face thirty feet high. On the ground were empty beer cans, broken wine bottles, spent condoms, a syringe or two. Someone had even rigged a swing from a tree. High on beer and marijuana, with sexual excitement crackling in the air, daredevil kids would run, grab the rope and swing out above the roofs of the tombs thirty feet below. But one slip and they'd be joining the dead beneath them in more ways than one.

  Now, even in near darkness, she had no problem in finding the grave of Jess Bowen. Barefoot, leaving bloody footprints, she walked along the path.

  There it was.

  A single slab lying flat on the ground, as large as a tabletop. At one end, as if mourning over the grave, was the statue of the weeping boy. As she approached the stone a breeze stirred the branches, sending whispering noises through the wood toward her. She glanced to her left where the ground fell away sheer to the labyrinth of crypts below. Skelbrooke village lay in darkness. Maybe the policewoman had discovered the bed empty by now. Not that it mattered. She was here. She had the chocolate.

  Quickly, she went to the grave, brushed away leaves from the stone slab, then as if setting down an offering before an altar, she placed the chocolate beneath the deeply chiseled name: JESS BOWEN.

  "There," she whispered. "You've got what you asked for. Now give Liam back to me."

  The marble eyes of the weeping boy stared down at the chocolate. Its face blank. A dead silence filled the cemetery.

  At that moment Mary felt as if she woke from a dream. With a moan she pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Oh, God, what have I done? He's never coming back… oh God, you stupid bitch, he's dead… he's dead…"

  A breeze rose. For a moment it seemed to rush, cold and loathsome, from some dark void beneath her feet. Branches creaked, leaves rustled. To her ears the sound came as a high giggling that mocked her stupidity.

  Suddenly she saw in her mind's eye what she must have looked like. A woman standing in a graveyard at midnight, wearing a cotton nightdress that barely reached the tops of her thighs; her hair a Godawful mess; her mind scrambled by grief… trying to turn back time by offering chocolate to a statue.

  Christ… fury erupted. How could she be so fucking stupid? That hideous little statue could do nothing! Absolutely fucking nothing!

  Engulfed with rage, with self-pity, with self-hatred, with grief, she howled like a wounded animal. Seconds later, she was swearing, scrambling down on all fours, clawing up handfuls of dirt, which she hurled at the statue. Then crying out in rage, she was on her feet tearing at her hair. She ripped her nightdress open, exposing her breasts.

  "Bastard!" she screamed. "I'll break you… I'll break you to fucking nothing!"

  She kicked at the statue with her bare feet, shattering her toes, bursting open her skin so the boy appeared to weep gobs of blood.

  "I'll murder you!" Ranting wildly she dragged her nails across her own flesh from her left shoulder to her right hip. Blood ran from the furrows in the flesh, smearing her naked breasts.

  Still she felt nothing. Even when she clawed her way forward on all fours to swing full-blooded punches at the head of the weeping boy. The crack of a snapping knucklebone didn't even make it through her eardrums to her brain. Inside her, she had become a vortex of rage. Nothing mattered now. Nothing but the overwhelming urge to destroy. And when her blows did no harm to the statue, other than smear it with blood, she realized what must be destroyed. What must be annihilated.

  On broken, bleeding feet she sprinted back down the path. Seconds later she'd reached the edge of the cliff. In one fluid movement she had seized hold of the rope swing that overhung the maze of tombs below, then she noosed the rope around her neck.

  She saw the moon. The roofs of Skelbrooke. The glint of the lake across at the Water Mill. She saw a misty face hanging before
her. Pray God it was Liam. Her baby was welcoming her across to the other side.

  "Wait… mommy's coming!"

  Air rushed around her ears; the nightdress rippled about her.

  "No!" was the only word she managed to scream as she fell-and before the rope snapped tight. The face wasn't her baby's. The eyes bulged. They glinted with eerie lights. Veins stood out from them as thick as earthworms.

  After the echoes of her final cry faded, the cemetery fell silent again, apart from a rushing sound as Mary Thorp swung back and forth, hair streaming from her wide-eyed face. She swung in long, slow sweeps like a vast pendulum. While her blood fell onto the crypts below as lightly as summer rain.

  CHAPTER 8

  1

  Friday morning. The day after Elizabeth's fall from the bike. Early morning mist burnt away by the sun, promising another sizzling day. John Newton walked Elizabeth to school (she couldn't wait to show off her bandages to her friends). Paul went under his own steam to the bus stop.

  Later, John finished washing the breakfast things as Val zipped around the kitchen brushing her hair while picking lint from her business jacket. "Why I had to choose plain black," she said. "It shows every speck of fluff. There. Now, shoes… shoes." She slipped them on. The dog, interpreting this as a promising sign for a walk, wagged his tail. "Not now, Sam. I'm going to work… right, John, I'll see you tonight."

  "Got everything?"

  "As far as I know. Uh, mobile?"

  "It's on the hallway table."

  "Thanks… there go the sirens again."

  "It was like that all yesterday afternoon. It sounded more like the Bronx than sleepy old England."

  He followed her through the hallway, where she paused to check her reflection in the glass. She looked composed. She was in working girl mode now. But he still remembered with a thrill how she lay naked on the bed, her hair mussed, murmuring some very provocative, not to say erotic, suggestions, while her eyes sparkled with sheer sex. Christ, why did she have to go to work today? They would have the house to themselves. He could watch her stroll around naked all day.