RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural

by Craig Saunders

  “Fuck off!” Jane screamed, jumping and rounding on the woman in the bed.

  “Jane,” said the woman. But it wasn’t her. She just grinned at the ceiling.

  Marion stalked around the bed toward her. Jane jumped away from Margaret’s body, trying to get something between herself and Marion, even air, because even in the near dark she could see that it wasn’t Marion but some kind of Marionette, and at that thought she did laugh, just for a heartbeat, until Marion swung the heavy knife in her hand in a downward arc for Jane’s face. All Jane could do was put her hand in the way, palm out. The knife sliced through her fingers, little to index, cutting them clean off.

  *

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Jane stared dumbly at her hand. There was no pain.

  Marion pulled the knife up and slashed again. It was a simple robotic movement. No finesse, just up, down. But quick enough. Jane stumbled sideways. The knife missed her, but she fell over Margaret’s feet in a jumble of arms and legs. Her head cracked against the bedside cabinet. She put her hands out as she fell, and the impact woke the pain in her hand and brought her back to the sharp reality that was her new world. All the way in. Her friend was trying to kill her. She had just lost the fingers from her right hand. Her boss was dead.

  The simplicity of this new world was a relief. She didn’t have to think her thoughts of a barren world. All that was left was pure concentration.

  The knife she’d taken from Margaret’s face was right there, by her left hand. She grabbed it and sat forward and plunged the knife into Marion’s stomach, just above the hip. Marion fell back. She didn’t cry out, but she stopped attacking Jane long enough to look at the knife jutting from her stomach, her face forming a question.

  Jane didn’t care what the question was. She saw her fingers on the floor. She picked them up with her left hand and pushed herself up with the same hand. Her legs were watery. Her hand was gushing blood. With no time to do anything about it, she ran at Marion and drove her knee into the handle of the knife, pushing it deeper. Marion waved the knife in her hand at Jane, cutting her shoulder.

  The knife in her friend’s stomach should have stopped her. It seemed it wasn’t enough. Jane didn’t waste time on surprise. She’d stabbed her friend in the stomach, and her friend was still standing. It was interesting, maybe, for later, but right now, the simplicity that was her fight for survival shrank everything to bullet points. She knew she couldn’t fight. So she ran.

  She ran down the hall toward the front door, cradling her disfigured hand to her chest. She used the thumb of her right hand to remove the chain. Blood gushed over the door. She flung it open, pulling it inwards, using her thumb again. She couldn’t use her left hand. She didn’t want to drop her fingers.

  The alarm was independent of the power. It had to be, because it had gone off earlier. Marion had told her as much.

  The rain poured in, sudden and freezing cold.

  An image of David Hill’s face came unbidden, full of sadness but serenity too.

  “It’s OK if you want to run,” he seemed to be saying.

  Sure, she thought. Run. Leave Mrs. March upstairs. Leave her to the rain. Leave her to Marion.

  “You could do that, Jane. You could.”

  But Jane decided in that instant that she didn’t want to be that person. She’d never given up on anything in her life. She wasn’t going to start now.

  She left the door open and ran to the stairs. The door at the foot of the stairs was open, so she barreled through, taking the stairs two at a time. Halfway up, her legs gave way. She sat down with a thump and slid down two steps.

  “Get up. Come on.”

  She got up. Stumbled to the top. Pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out onto the landing. Blood covered her shirt. She couldn’t put pressure on her hand, because she was holding her fingers. She wouldn’t lose her fingers.

  “Then hide. She’s coming.”

  She pushed the closest door open with her elbow and stepped inside into near darkness. The darkness was stark after the hallway. Her eyes adjusted slowly. The occupant was dead, eyes glassy in the meagre light.

  Mr. Meaker. He used to spit on the girls, she remembered. Funny, she thought. Once, he’d had a wife. He had children who never came to see him. A whole life, and the last thing she could remember about him was that he used to spit on the girls.

  She put her fingers on a cabinet and pulled open Mr. Meaker’s wardrobe to hunt through the trousers on the hangers until she found a belt. The belt made the best tourniquet she could think of, cinched tight round the meat of her forearm. She wound the length of the belt round and round until she could tuck the end in.

  The drawer under her fingers contained the old man’s pants and socks. She put a pair of the old man’s pants at the end of the socks, using her teeth to hold the sock and her left hand to push the pants in, her right hand held high, trying to slow the blood. She put one sock inside the other. Then she pulled it over her ruined hand like a glove. Pulled it as high and tight as it would go.

  It was the best she could do.

  The cut in the flesh of her shoulder went unnoticed. She was tired and weak from loss of blood, and her only weapon was downstairs, stuck in Marion.

  The stairwell door banged shut.

  The knife wasn’t downstairs anymore. It was upstairs. Maybe it was two knives. One in Marion’s stomach, one in her hand.

  How many people had Marion killed tonight?

  Why?

  Jane realised she was panting.

  Calm.

  Softly. Go softly.

  Questions could wait.

  “Karen needs you.”

  “I know,” she replied. She knew the voice she’d been hearing was her own, but sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes he came through, too. David Hill’s voice. Karen’s father. She didn’t try to reason out how or why, but she took what comfort from it she could. She also knew that Karen was still alive.

  She had no doubt her father wasn’t. He was a ghost.

  Jane wished he wasn’t. She could really use some help. But she wasn’t about to get any. She was on her own.

  *

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Mandy stepped into the kitchen, and the door slammed behind her. She spun round and saw Greg’s grinning face. The scream was more from shock than fear. It just came to her lips, unstoppable.

  “Shh, Mandy. Shh. You’ll wake the baby.”

  “Fuck off! Fuck off, you cunt!”

  “Now is that any way to talk to the father of your child?”

  “You fucking raped me!” She was suddenly, instantly furious. She swung a fist at Greg’s face. Her hand passed through his face, and water splashed against the pantry door.

  Greg’s face reformed from the air. Water swirled and pooled, and he was still grinning, but now she could see his eyes were black. The grin was pure death.

  “I hear women in a delicate condition get a little hormonal. I’ll give you that one, Mandy slut. Try it again and I’ll fuck you like you wish little old Greg could’ve given it to you. Understand me, sugar?”

  Mandy nodded.

  “Good show, good show. Perhaps you’re not as stupid as you look. Now. You going to put out for me? Put out like I was Smiley?”

  Mandy shook her head, her wet hair slapping her face.

  “I could force you, you know. You’re probably still slack from the fucking you got earlier, but I could show you how a man does it, eh? Like that? How’d you like that? Eh? Mandy slut?”

  “Fuck you! You’re not a man.”

  Greg threw his head back and laughed.

  Mandy had never known any schizophrenics. She’d never see anyone in the grips of a psychotic episode. She didn’t know words like psychopath and sociopath.

  She just thought, as she listened to that laugh, “That’s what crazy sounds like. He’s mad. Flat-out fucked.”

  But she wasn’t stupid. Not by a long shot. She didn’t say what she was thi
nking, because the thing wearing Greg’s skin was insane, and it could kill her in a heartbeat.

  Greg was dead. There was no doubt. She didn’t know how she felt about that. She’d been going with him for a few months then he’d … raped her … Now he was dead.

  She wasn’t happy. She wasn’t sad.

  Above all those thoughts, one thought repeated itself over and over in her head: I don’t want to die.

  “What do you want?” she said, thinking all the time. Thinking faster than she’d ever thought in her life. Thinking for her life.

  Greg wiped mock tears from his black eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Oh, Mandy. I’m just fucking with you. I don’t want to kill you.”

  If I believed that, she thought, I really would be stupid. Don’t say what you’re thinking, Mandy, she told herself. Say what you think and you’ll just get dead quicker.

  He didn’t know what she was thinking. He couldn’t read her mind. She had to believe that.

  He was powerful. But there had to be limits.

  Mandy thought of all the superhero comics she’d ever read. Witchblade was her favourite. Everyone had a weakness. Maybe not in real life. People in real life weren’t brought low by magical or mystical means. But if the person was mystical …

  He was the rain.

  “What do you want?” she repeated. She tried not to sound snippy. Just a question. Straightforward. Don’t give him room to pounce. Do what he wants until you can do something about it.

  “Now, Mandy. I see you looking about. You’re thinking, I wonder what will hurt him. I’ll tell you, shall I?”

  Mandy shook her head. Stopped looking. If there was something that could hurt him, he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her.

  “You’re smart. Maybe. A little smart. I can see that. I’ll tell you anyway, eh? In the spirit of things. Quid pro quo. You know what that means?”

  “That you’re a pretentious cunt?”

  He laughed.

  She knew he didn’t have a sense of humour. But he’d pretend to. That was his … face. Yes. That was right. He was playing a part. Role-playing. Like the kind of child molester that’d pretend to be Aragorn online.

  What was underneath?

  A murderer. An insane murderer. He pretended to be complicated, but Mandy got it. He really wasn’t complicated at all.

  “Nothing can kill me, Mandy. I’m rain. Do you know what immortal means?”

  “It means you’re really old. It means if you try and do anything to me, that’d make you a paedophile.”

  Anger crossed Greg’s face. Quick as a flash. Mandy almost missed it.

  She didn’t want to make him angry, but it had touched a nerve. It didn’t help.

  Did it?

  She couldn’t help but wonder why. Why would something that was immortal, something that had killed a ton of people … Why would it care if someone thought it was a nonce?

  “Funny girl,” he said and slapped her so hard she felt one of her teeth crack.

  He stood back. Mandy tasted blood. She turned her head and spat the blood and a small chip of her tooth on the floor.

  “Fucker.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I did,” he said.

  “You’ve got a shit sense of humour, you know that?”

  “Ah, fuck it. Wasted me. Wasted.”

  He leapt forward like a flash of lightning, grabbed her hair and rammed her head into the kitchen worktop before she could do anything about it.

  “I’m bored of playing fucking games. I’m a straight shooter, Mandy, believe that. You scream for me, plead. Do a good job and maybe I’ll let your boyfriend live. I probably won’t. Gave him one fucking job, and he fucked that right up. Can’t get the help, eh?”

  Mandy blinked the blood from her eyes. She couldn’t speak for fear of throwing up. Nausea washed over her. He’d hit her head pretty hard. The room was spinning, but it didn’t matter that she couldn’t walk straight. His grip on her hair was so hard she couldn’t fall down without him tearing her hair out. She didn’t want that.

  “No acting required. I gave you a chance. Can’t say I’m not fair. From here on out, you just be your sweet lovable self.”

  He yanked her hair hard, and she screamed just as he opened the door.

  *

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Mandy!”

  Smiley was faster than John. Faster than Mabel. He leapt from the arm of the couch and ran to the door. He pushed the handle down and put his weight on the door, but it didn’t budge. He ran back a few steps and charged it. The door buckled, and Smiley bounced back. The door was uninjured.

  Then John was there. He put his weight into the door. He probably weighed twice what Smiley weighed. The door didn’t even move.

  “Mandy!” Smiley kicked at the door. Normally, an interior house door would have splintered. Smiley’s foot would have gone through one of those hollow doors, with the corrugated board inside to stop it collapsing the first time someone slammed it.

  The door didn’t even dent.

  Water began to run down the door from the top.

  “Oh my …”

  John stood back. Thought. He let Smiley kick at the door. It wouldn’t do any good, but John didn’t want to get in the way.

  The rain was the other side of the door, and it was doing something to Mandy.

  The fact that John couldn’t hear her scream anymore didn’t mean she was dead. It didn’t mean that. Mandy was one of them. There were four of them. They were a team. They’d drunk from the same bottle. It was stupid, but it wasn’t. John knew there was something there. They needed to be together.

  He had to get Mandy back.

  He couldn’t get through the door. As powerful as the rain was, if it wanted to keep a door shut, it would. The rain could take on any form it liked. Destroy a town, for fuck’s sake.

  The rain would come for them.

  John wanted a plan, but he was coming up blank every time he approached the problem.

  “Can we get in through the window?” said Mabel. She’d got up from the couch. John turned his head to look at her. She had a candle in her hand, and in its wan light, she looked very old. So old. But there was determination in her eyes, and anger too. A good skin-full of anger.

  She’d be OK. He wasn’t so sure about Smiley.

  John shook his head in response to Mabel’s question. ‘It’s keeping the door closed. If it wants the window in the kitchen closed, it’ll stay closed.’

  He stepped away from the door and took Mabel by the shoulder. He pulled her to one side.

  Smiley’s foot smacked into the door over and over. He was getting tired. The kicks tapered off until Smiley stood back, panting.

  “You stay back here. We’ll handle this,” he said.

  Mabel glanced at Smiley. He was glaring at the door, his chest heaving from exertion.

  “John March, don’t take this the wrong way. You can’t handle this.”

  He shook his head.

  “You watch me,” he said. ‘Smiley. Stand to the side of the door. Both of you, close your eyes.’

  “What?”

  John ignored the question. He had to pull them together. He had to give them strength. Show them what could be done.

  Some things you couldn’t do anything about. Like a four-by-four with a bull bar.

  Some things you could handle. Like broken ribs, cut feet. Things like that, they let you know you weren’t beaten yet.

  Shutting a shop every lunchtime and driving to see your wife in a full-time care home when you were still in your thirties, that was hard. It could be done, though.

  Opening the door was no harder than doing all that.

  Living afterward might be a problem, but right now they needed a victory. Even a small one like an open door into a dead man’s kitchen.

  John stepped around the couch to the black plastic sack on a table. Everyone but John had forgotten the lockbox.

  He picked it up and pulled the sack awa
y from it. Drops of rain pooled in the folds of the sack fell onto the box. The box sizzled, the places where the water hit getting hot.

  “Shit. You said it was dangerous, but …” Smiley couldn’t take his eyes from the box. “You think that’ll work?”

  “Young man,” said Mabel to John, “You need a crowbar, not a tin box.”

  “Mabel …” John shook his head. How could he explain, when she hadn’t seen? “Just watch.”

  He stood by the door. Held the box high like it was a sledgehammer. He didn’t know if he’d have to hit the door or just touch it. Best to err on the side of caution.

  If the jar inside broke?

  “Well, then, fuck it,” he said to himself and pulled the box back to swing it at the door.

  The door swung inwards, and the boy who’d raped Mandy came out, holding her head by her hair. Except it wasn’t the boy. Of course it wasn’t. That boy was dead, because the rain was wearing him.

  “We meet again, my old cocker,” said the rain. John swung the box.

  *

  Chapter Fifty

  The box slammed into the boy’s face, and his head exploded in a flash of light.

  Smiley grabbed Mandy’s hand and pulled her into his arms, away from the remains of the boy. His head wasn’t dented. It just wasn’t there.

  Greg’s body stumbled around blindly.

  John, too, was blinded for an instant, but when his vision came back, he looked into the kitchen. Water gushed from boy’s torn neck. Then the neck began to build on itself. The vertebrae rose like a tower built from a kid’s building blocks. The jaw jutted out, then the skull.

  The gurgling laugh started as soon as the neck formed. John watched in horror as the blood vessels and the eyes and then the skin and hair all formed from pure water.

  “Ta-fucking-da!” it said. There was malice in the rain’s eyes, but humour too.

  “Stronger now, John. You feel me? Stronger than the old fuck’s hack magic.”

  “Hey,” said Smiley.

  The rain looked around.

  “Smiley, you’re fired.”