Smiley ignored it. “You killed Greg,” he said.
Greg nodded. Smiled and polished his knuckles on his chest.
“You killed Hippo.”
Greg shook his head. “No way, dude. You can’t lay that on me.” He laughed. The sound was full of good humour but for the burbling under the laugh. Like a backed-up drain, John thought. Full of shit.
“Fuck you, freak,” Mandy said. Her voice was muddy, but her anger wasn’t. “You killed Hippo just the same as you killed everyone else. So fuck you. Fuck off. Just fuck off.”
“Seconded,” said Mabel. John glanced at her. She was pale and ghostly, but her back was straight, and she didn’t back down when she stared at the creature in the doorway.
“Well, now. Regular little posse you’ve got here, John.”
“What, are you a cowboy now?”
“Yee-har,” said Greg with a grin.
“Here’s the deal,” said John.
Greg snorted. “You’re trying to deal with me?”
Yes, thought John. Yes I am. Because you’re standing there and I’m still alive. Because the last time you touched this box, you exploded into nothing. This time, you’re just standing there having a fucking laugh.
Yes, thought John. I’m trying to deal with you until I can figure out a way to stop you from killing us all.
“You’ll love this,” he said. “We walk out of here. When we’re safe, I’ll give you the box.”
“Give it to me now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll just take it.”
“I don’t think you’re that strong. You’re powerful. I get it. Well done. Bully for you, Rain, whatever the fuck you are. But you can’t open the box, can you?”
Anger flashed in Greg’s dead black eyes, but his face smiled.
“Keep talking, John. It’s amusing, if nothing else.”
“You’re just one man. You’ve only got one body. There are four of us.”
“There’s a small flaw in your thinking, John.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep,” said the policeman standing in the doorway behind them.
*
Chapter Fifty-One
Smiley’s father popped his head over the windowsill.
“Seriously flawed thinking, Mr. March,” he said, and folded his arms on the windowsill. “Son, you been a bad boy?”
“Ignore him, Smiley,” said John, turning. The policeman was blocking the door. Smiley’s dad was blocking the window. Greg was smiling. They were all smiling. There was no way out.
The box in John’s hands began to glow. The box was powerful. The runes could hurt the rain. John knew that.
But what was in the box? The rain’s wife. She hated the rain. How powerful was she?
“Walk,” she said.
The voice came from the box. That voice. My God.
He took his eyes from Greg long enough to catch Smiley’s eye. Smiley was terrified in a way he hadn’t been before. He’d been angry. He’d been brave. What had changed?
His dad. He was terrified of his dad. John remembered Smiley telling him how he hated his dad.
John didn’t want to imagine what could make a son hate and fear his father so much.
“Smiley,” John said. “He’s not your dad. You know that, right?”
“Son, I’m going to have to …”
“Fuck you!” Smiley shouted so hard his voice cracked. “Fuck you! I fucking hate you! I’m glad you’re dead!”
“Oh, you’re a bad boy. I’m going to have to take my belt to you, boy.”
Smiley was shaking. He was crying. Greg started to laugh.
Smiley hadn’t heard the voice from the box. If he’d heard the voice, he wouldn’t be frightened. He’d be laughing. He’d be lifted up high in the sky like John was.
Greg hadn’t heard the voice either. The woman in the box had spoken. John had no doubt about that. But the voice was good enough for him. Good enough, thought John.
He reached out for Smiley. Smiley tried to snatch his hand back, but John was stronger. He pulled Smiley’s hand toward him and placed it on the box.
“What are you doing, John? John?” Greg sounded worried.
Smiley looked at John. The tension left his face. He nodded to something that John didn’t hear. It wasn’t for his ears. But that was OK. Smiley winked at John. John winked right back.
“John, you’re making me angry.”
John ignored the rain and began to walk toward the policeman.
“What are you doing?” said the policeman.
“Follow me,” John said. He didn’t stop to look around. He could hear footsteps on the carpet. Smiley, Mandy and Mabel coming up right behind him.
“John, what are you doing? John? Buddy?”
Greg. He didn’t sound confident anymore.
The box was bright now. Like sunshine, but sunshine glaring on snow, pure and white and brilliant.
The policeman backed out into the hall. John walked faster. Straight for the policeman.
“You fucking stop right there.”
John ignored him. The policeman backed out into the rain.
The rain. What would he do about the rain?
“You let me worry about that. You walk, John. You walk.”
John stepped into the rain, followed by his friends. The rain didn’t touch them. The white light surrounded them, like a dome above their heads. The sound of the rain, the wind, all fell away.
He looked around. The sky was lighter. The sun was on the way. Somewhere still under the horizon, but John could feel it. Something good under the horizon. Out of sight but on its way.
Shapes formed in the rain and rose up and became people. But they weren’t people. They were just ghosts.
They followed the four survivors, surrounding them. Hate in their faces. Greg stepped into the rain behind them and followed them. Shouting.
“You know your Bible, John? What are we? Tell me, John. You know you can’t win.”
John knew. Legion.
But there was nothing biblical about the rain. It was just rain.
Mabel starting singing, low, almost a mumble, but John could hear it. He could make out the words.
“Rain, rain, go away. Come back again another day.”
Just that. Like liturgy. Over and over.
Nothing had ever sounded so sweet.
“Mabel?”
“Yes?” She was beside him now. John looked to his left, and Smiley and Mandy were there. They were in a line, in the centre of the street. Pushing the rain before them. Untouchable.
“Do you have a car?”
“Mr. Oldham had a car. I presume it still runs.”
God, I hope so.
“Can we go and get it?”
“I think that’s a very good idea.”
“Legion! Legion, John. You don’t understand that. You will.”
John tried to tune it out. He began to sing under his breath.
“Rain, rain, go away.”
“You fuck with my wife, John? Yours tastes pretty sweet, let me tell you. I can taste her right now, John. Sweetest, dumbest pussy I ever had!”
John’s blood ran cold. He stopped.
“Keep walking, John,” said the rain’s wife. Her voice was beautiful. But it was Mabel who got him moving. Mabel who took his arm and pinched it, hard.
“For your wife’s sake, John, don’t you dare stop. You keep walking.”
The hardest thing John ever did, he did every day. Lock the shop, drive to August House, open his wife’s door.
This wasn’t as hard. Not by a long shot.
John March put one foot in front of the other and headed down the hill in the glorious glow that kept the rain from their heads but couldn’t keep the chill from his heart.
*
Chapter Fifty-Two
Everything was soft. The hard edges had been rounded down. The footfalls in the hallway, trainers on carpet, the gentle swoosh-swooshing of Marion’s trousers ru
bbing as she walked. All soft, just like the blood dripping to the carpet from the place where Jane’s fingers used to be.
She blinked and swayed, nearly fell. But she, too, needed to go softly.
Weak and dizzy and without a weapon, she knew she couldn’t do anything but wait until Marion bled to death.
Her whole world had gone soft. It was sagging, like a slab of raw meat spreading off the side of a plate. Marion had been her friend for almost as long as she’d worked at August House. Funny and loving, tough and unflinching when she needed to be. She was better than a good friend. She’d been her best friend. The rain had destroyed her. Jane had no doubt that this was true. She just couldn’t understand why he needed to make someone else kill all the residents. How could anyone, anything, be so cruel?
Jane was standing still, then she wasn’t. She fell to one knee, her head spinning, on the verge of passing out.
“Don’t you dare,” she told herself.
Jane put her head down, took deep calm breaths. The room pulsed, like a heart pumping, but she knew it wasn’t the room. It was her brain, searching for blood.
Someone put a finger under her chin and lifted her head.
Karen’s father. There in the room. But of course, he wasn’t there. Not really. He was nothing but a ghost. A ghost wouldn’t be able to move her head or lift her to her feet, its hands under her armpits, pulling with surprising strength. A ghost wouldn’t be able to do all that, but it did it, just the same.
She was on her feet, and David held her by the shoulders. Her head dropped again. He crouched and looked up into her eyes.
“You’re not really here,” she said. “You’re a hallucination.”
“I’m really here for you,” he said.
She shook her head, but he remained serene.
“Give me your hand.”
She put her left hand out. The ghost that wasn’t there, couldn’t be there, cocked his head to one side and gave her a wry grin. She didn’t see what was funny. He pushed her left hand down and pulled her maimed right hand to him.
He pulled her makeshift bandage away from the wound.
“No …”
He ignored her. He blew on her fingers. Cold ran across the throbbing remains of her fingers, and it was bliss. No feeling. Jane hadn’t realised the pain that had been coming from her hand until it went away. Her hand turned from cold to freezing, and the bleeding slowed, then stopped.
The ghost moved to one side. He held his right hand over her hand. Moved his hand down until it was resting on top of her hand, and then he pushed down. There was no weight there, but Jane could feel her flesh pushing back at him. His hand passed right through hers, and as she watched, both hands merged so that they existed in the same place at once.
And suddenly, Jane could move her fingers. She wriggled her fingers, and the ghost’s fingers moved.
The ghost took his hand away, and the fingers remained.
“What … what?”
He stepped away, and she looked at his hand. His fingers were missing. There was no blood, but then, why would there be? He wasn’t there. He wasn’t real. What wasn’t real couldn’t bleed.
But she had his fingers. She looked down at her ghost fingers. Wriggled them. Her mouth was wide open, and she closed it with a snap.
“He cannot touch the dead,” said the ghost.
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“The rain?”
Karen’s father nodded. “Time’s getting short. You’ll be on your own soon. I can’t face him. I don’t have the strength. But …” He reached out and touched her fingers. Her dead fingers. She could feel his touch in her ghost fingers. “You can hurt him.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
He laid a hand on her cheek. It was a kind and gentle gesture full of love.
“Why me?” she said.
“Why me?” he replied. “Sometimes, Jane Walker, there is no one else. That’s why.”
“I can’t face him. Not alone.”
“Help’s coming. But you’ve got to face him. You’ve got to hold him up.”
“Marion …”
“He cannot touch the dead,” the ghost said again.
“But what does that mean?” she almost shouted in frustration, but he remained calm.
Soft.
He picked up her fingers from the cabinet beside her and placed them in her hand. Jane curled her ghost fingers around the dead flesh. She could feel the skin and the blood. The fingers were flaccid. Her nails ragged. She could see her real fingers through the ghostly fingers.
“He cannot touch the dead.”
David Hill kissed her on both cheeks.
Then she was alone. Not for long, maybe, but for now there was just her, and the why of it didn’t matter. Sometimes things happen to people because there isn’t anyone else there for them to happen to.
*
Chapter Fifty-Three
The dead walked the streets. They stood in their front gardens or on the pavement. Some sat on low front walls or on the bonnets and boots of parked cars. Watching. Waiting.
“I wish they’d fuck off,” said Smiley.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Mabel.
“Mabel, where’s your car?”
“In the garage. That’s my house,” she said, pointing.
The house was surrounded by the dead. They weren’t really there, thought John. They were nothing but puppets.
How many dead? Was the whole town dead? Was the rain powerful enough to destroy a whole town?
It looked like it. There were hundreds of black eyes watching them.
They couldn’t touch John or his friends. Rain’s wife surrounded them in a cold bleak light that pushed back the dark.
But it wasn’t true dark anymore.
“Dawn’s not far off,” said Smiley.
“Do you think it will go? Like, the sun’ll hit it, then it’ll stop?” Mandy asked.
Smiley didn’t think so. But he didn’t want to make it any tougher than it had to be.
“Maybe the sun’ll hit the rain and it’ll just dry up. Like a vampire. Right?”
John smiled to himself. He didn’t pause at Mabel’s house. He walked faster, pulling them all with him and pushing the dead back with the white light.
Mabel took a set of keys out of her pocket and pushed a small key into the garage door.
A large car was inside. A saloon car. American make.
“I can’t drive,” she said.
John nodded. He held the box out to Mandy.
He didn’t know if it would work, but it would give Mandy strength, and she needed strength more than anyone else.
“I can’t!” she said.
“You can. Just hold it. I need to drive. I need your help.”
“Smiley can take it.”
“No. She wants you.”
“Who?”
“Rain’s wife.”
Mandy paled.
John ignored her and thrust the box into her hands. The light remained, but he couldn’t hear the voice anymore. That beautiful voice. He felt an instant of sadness, but he knew it wasn’t a voice you could possess. Rain didn’t know that. Maybe David Hill had.
John took the keys from Mabel and stepped around to the driver’s side. The car’s doors clicked open with an electric fob.
“In. Quick.”
They piled into the car.
Here goes nothing, thought John. If you’re looking out for us, a little help with the battery would be sweet.
He turned the key, and the engine roared to life. Without bothering to look in his rearview mirror or check seatbelts, he floored the accelerator and shot out of the garage in reverse, taking off the driver’s-side wing mirror on Mabel’s wall.
The dead broke apart into their true form as he hit them. Water splashed against the car. The rain on the roof was suddenly deafening.
The storm was going strong.
“The hill’s flooded, remember?” said S
miley from the back seat.
“I know,” said John. “I’ll go down Brecker’s Hill. Through Cemetery Road.”
“No,” Mandy said. Then she said, “Oh. The Lady in the box says that’s OK. She says we’ll be safe there.”
John didn’t question it. He drove as fast as he could. The dead stood in his way, but they couldn’t stop the car. They were no more than people-shaped puddles.
“The sun’s coming up.”
“The Lady says to hurry. She says …”
“What?” said John.
“She says your wife needs you.”
John swallowed. He checked his speed. The car was already hitting fifty miles an hour. Any faster wouldn’t be safe. But he put his foot to the floor anyway. The car leapt forward and slewed around the next bend.
“John, I think the rain wants your wife. He said something earlier … no, that’s not right. I called him a paedo, and he freaked out … like he knows your wife’s his … what, step-daughter?”
John swallowed hard. There’s no time, he thought. No time.
“Shit. John, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m dumb.”
John shook his head. “You’re not dumb, Mandy. Not by a long shot. Don’t you think it for a minute.”
The engine roared, drowning out the sound of the rain hitting the car, the wheels throwing up walls of water either side of the big wheels.
Karen. I’m coming, honey.
A silent promise, but one with all the weight of his love behind it.
*
Chapter Fifty-Four
The rain was there, omnipresent, pouring down the hill like a river, pummelling the car, covering everything in town with its evil. Then the rain stopped.
It stopped when the big car pulled onto Cemetery Road. The car rolled on for a while, then John put his foot on the brake. He knew time was running down, but he couldn’t help it. Something was calling to him.
Karen was waiting, but there was something here. Something was screaming at him, screaming his name. He could no more drive on than he could shut it out from his ears. If he didn’t answer, he would go deaf. His ears would blow, blood would drip down the side of his neck …
RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural Page 18